by Tristan Vick
Without hesitating Rachael threw off her hideous blood-encrusted tutu and sash and changed. Alyssa could tell she was relieved to get out of that creepy Black Swan get up. Or whatever it was supposed to be. She also tossed Rachael a white and yellow biker jacket. It didn’t exactly go with the dress, but at least the colors complemented one another.
Reaching down into the open top of the one-piece, Rachael adjusted her breasts and then pulled them together again and made sure everything was in its rightful place. Alyssa was right. The dress was a little on the snug side and she filled it rather nicely. Even as her cleavage bulged out of the top quite prominently but, truth be told, she’d take anything she could get over that god-awful Black Swan outfit.
Alyssa handed Rachael a pair of glossy black, knee-high boots. “One of the ladies down the hall thought they would fit you. I hope they’re your size.”
Rachael inspected them and nodded in approval. She slipped them on discreetly and whispered, “These will do.”
Motioning with her hand for Rachael to follow her lead, Alyssa stepped quietly out into the hall. Beyond the large windows she saw the deep purple sky fading up to a navy-blue evening with white starry spackle embellished upon it.
Before Alyssa could go any further Rachael put her hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure about this? I mean, leaving this place. The outside isn’t any safer, you know.”
Alyssa took a deep breath and looked deep into Rachael’s eyes. “You have to trust me on this. The people in here are all terrified. Nobody leaves their rooms unless requested. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is extremely wrong with this place. It’s unnatural. And it’s not just Treslan’s daughter either. It’s something more than that. I mean, people keep being brought in, but the rooms aren’t filling up. Where are they all going to? What is Treslan doing with them? I have a bad feeling about all this. I mean, I’d rather take my chances out there than live trapped in here as Treslan’s guinea pig.”
Rachael thought about it for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I trust you. But if we run into trouble out there, we come back here. Deal?”
Alyssa didn’t like it much, but she didn’t see that they had any other options. “It’s a deal,” she replied. Nodding her head, she motioned toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. “Follow me.”
Entering the stairwell, they took the stairs down to the lobby. Alyssa couldn’t believe they had made it this far without being detected. No guard detail, nothing. A little unusual, but Alyssa wasn’t complaining. She only hoped their streak of good luck held out. As they approached the front doors, suddenly, a man’s voice pierced the silence.
“Have you seen my Dahlia?”
Both women spun around to see Jamal Treslan standing slumped over in the corner of the hall, half engulfed by shadows. Stepping out from the shadows, he looked like a sad wreck of a man.
“Your daughter? I thought she was with you,” Rachael said.
Treslan reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. It was a two-tone SIG Sauer Mosquito. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Ms. Ramirez. Not now. We have to find my daughter first. She needs another treatment.”
Alyssa tugged on Rachael’s arm. “Don’t try and reason with him, he’ll just take what he wants and keep you a prisoner here. Trust me.”
Rachael leaned over and whispered in Alyssa’s ear, “I trust you. But you have to let me handle this my way.”
Alyssa nodded and took a step back, getting safely behind Rachael.
“Mrs. Ramirez,” Treslan called out in the fullness of voice. “I promised you I would help you find your son. We can cure him together. All you have to do is lend me your trust in return.”
Treslan wasn’t the only one lingering in the shadows. Stepping out from the dark, black-eyed Dahlia crept up behind her father. The cure was obviously only temporary. She had reverted back to a zombie.
“Oh lord!” Alyssa cried out, covering her mouth with her hands to muffle her scream.
Treslan spun around to see his daughter staring up at him with that haunting black-eyed gaze. She cocked her head to the side, like a small curious animal and growled softly. Treslan dropped to his knees and placed his gun on the floor next to him. Tears streaming down his face, he said, “There you are, baby. Don’t you fear a thing. Daddy is here. Daddy will take care of you now.”
Dahlia staggered up to her father, one foot dragging numbly behind her as she inched toward him. She continued to gaze at him with her unnerving black eyes.
With outstretched arms, Treslan welcomed the embrace of his daughter. “Yes, come to me, my Dahlia. Daddy is here.”
Dahlia sprang into her father’s arms and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He smiled as she tore into his flesh and hugged her tenderly. A fitting end for the father of a monster, he thought. “If we can’t be together in this life,” he said, “then I will join you in the nightmare world.”
Rachael took a step forward, as if she was planning to do something, but Alyssa’s hand was instantly around her elbow.
“No, leave him be. It’s too late now.”
38
Family Reunion
Passing a plethora of abandoned cars and shops, most of them looted by scavengers, Alyssa and Rachael headed toward Rachael’s apartment. It was only two or three miles from where they were. The plan was to stock up on supplies and map out a plan of what to do next.
A newspaper wafted down the street like a lonesome tumbleweed drifting by in an old Western. Alyssa bent down and picked up the paper. It was a week old. The headline read, “The Dead Walk!”
It wasn’t like she was expecting there to be good news or anything, but she wanted to see if it said anything useful. It didn’t, so see ditched it.
Continuing along, Alyssa scanned every street corner with suspicion. Rachael didn’t seem to be concerned whether hidden dangers lurked in the shadows cast by tall buildings or what things might crawl up out of the subway tunnels. Alyssa couldn’t tell if Rachael was brave or had just given up all hope.
From behind a nearby car a female zombie jumped out at Alyssa and hissed. Alyssa tripped over her own feet as she scrambled back. Landing on her ass, she frantically back-pedaled as the Walker bore down upon her. But before she could get to her gun, a shot rang out and the Walker fell to the ground, dead at her feet.
Rachael stood in front of an open police cruiser holding a recently acquired shotgun in her hands. She pumped it once and the gun spat out the spent casing.
Alyssa sighed with relief, but then noticed Rachael’s knuckles were bleeding. Not just that, but the skin had peeled all the way off her knuckles revealing cartilage and bone. “What happened to your hands?”
“It was locked. I had to get the gun out somehow.”
Before Alyssa’s very eyes, Rachael’s hands mended themselves.
“Wow,” she murmured. “That’s the thing you were telling me about last night, right? The healing powers?”
Rachael was going to reply, but a strange noise drew her attention away. Putting her finger to her lips, she quietly whispered, “Listen.”
Alyssa cupped her palm around her ear and strained to hear whatever it was Rachael had heard. Sure enough, every ounce of shade that surrounded them began to murmur with hunger pains—the sounds of moaning. Out from the shadows emerged the hungry horde of the undead.
“Go,” Rachael said, pointing out the direction of her apartment. “Now!”
Jogging up the road, they quickly found their stride. Running in a continuous S pattern, they moved toward the left of the street and zigzagged back to the right as they went. This strategy seemed to confuse the Walkers as to which direction they were headed just enough to keep them fumbling over themselves.
A densely packed group of undead pinning them into a corner would almost certainly spell their imminent demise. So they ran. They ran until their lungs burned and their legs had turned to rubber, and then they ran some more.
Hector not remember things. Hector only
remember how hungry he is. Hector look for meat. Meat filling. Hector want to eat meat. Eat meat, Hector. Eat, eat, eat!
Rachael and Alyssa fled St. Martin’s Hospital as fast as their legs would carry them. The sun peeked over the horizon and lit up the sky with the bright pink of dawn. Several blocks later they slowed to a jog and then stopped for a moment to look at the strange sight of medical bags full of blood hanging from the trees and lamp poles, upon fences, and stapled to the walls of buildings.
“So this is how they kept the Walkers at bay,” Alyssa mused.
“Like ants following a trail of crumbs,” Rachael added.
“Over there!” Alyssa cried out.
Spinning around, they looked at the shadowy figure hunched over in the middle of the street. It was a small boy, crouched over and feasting on one of the blood bags he had managed to tear down from a low hanging branch.
“I don’t believe it,” gasped Rachael. Her voice cracked, tearing with emotion as she spoke. Alyssa looked over at the small creature with white eyes.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Rachael blurted out in disbelief. “That’s my son, Hector.”
Hector stood looking aimlessly up at the sky, but he wasn’t oblivious to their presence, since he was busy sniffing the air.
Hector smell fresh meat. Hector smell blood!
Hector’s head snapped to the side and his ashen eyes locked right onto the two figures standing off to the side of the road staring back at him.
Hector hungry. Hector want fresh meat! Eat meat, Hector. Eat, eat, eat! Hector eat you!
“Grahrrr!”
“Let’s get a move on,” Alyssa prompted.
Rachael just wanted to fall onto her knees and cry. She wanted to scream, she wanted to pound the asphalt with her fists until her hands bled, and she wanted to tear the world apart. But there wasn’t time for wallowing in despair. Hector was staggering toward them and she knew from experience what would happen next.
Staring intensely at the thing that her beautiful boy had become—she seared the image onto her brain so that there would be no doubt in her mind—this wasn’t Hector. Hector was gone and, as hard as it was to admit that fact, she knew she had to let go.
Alyssa tugged on her arm again. Slowly, Rachael turned and followed her. Before turning completely away, with tears in her eyes and a hollowness eating her from the inside out, she whispered, “I love you my little prince. Always and forever.”
39
Painting the Town Red
Wheels smoked and rubber burned into the pavement as the tires of the Komatsu LAV and newly acquired Humvee bit down on asphalt and peeled out. Tearing out of the entrance of the base, the two trucks headed straight for the wave of zombies crashing down on them. The general slammed his foot down on the accelerator and used the hand brake to skid the Komatsu around the corner of the gate. Staff Sergeant Jared Barnes followed close behind in the wider, more sluggish, Humvee.
Luckily, Greer remembered to load the Browning .50 caliber machine gun mounted to the roof of the Komatsu. It had armor-piercing rounds that could eat up darn near anything. The Hummer was equipped with a twin-barrel Minimi machine gun. Its double barrels allowed for a wider spread at close range.
Barnes looked over at Jennifer Hurley, who sat beside him in the passenger seat. “You’re gonna have to take the wheel.”
“What?” Jen gasped.
“Someone has to man the gun turret. You up for it?”
“Shit,” said Jennifer, sliding over into the driver’s seat and taking the wheel. Barnes climbed into the back and then scrambled up through the cupola hatch and manned the guns.
General Greer’s lead foot led the way as they plowed through waves of the sluggish undead. “Sergeant, get up on the Browning and plow me a path. And remember, Sergeant…” Greer paused dramatically, then continued, “Fire is the Devil’s only friend.”
“Yes, sir!” Noble said with excitement and, taking ahold of the Browning, squeezed down on the trigger.
Badda, badda, badda!
Arms shaking with the .50 cal’s raw power, Noble grinned as the streaks of hot white, like hot needles of fire, tore into the meat-sacks that made up the undead. The high velocity rounds of the .50 cal obliterated everything in its path.
Walkers popped like water balloons and left large blood splotches with residual splatter as high velocity rounds chewed them up and spat them out. Limbs exploded left and right as the bullets sawed through the sea of zombies.
Swerving to dodge the assortment abandoned vehicles littering the road, the two vehicles cut a wide swath through the horde of monsters standing in their way. General Greer picked up the walkie-talkie and keyed in. “Hang on to your hats, folks…it’s about to get bumpy.”
“Oorah!” screamed Noble. “Like a hot knife through butter!”
Racing out of the fallen city, the two vehicles carved a path of carnage right through the center of the swarm of monsters. Red-drenched tires shot up blood splatter that painted their undercarriages and side panels with gory spackle.
As Ulysses parted the sea of undead with the Browning, Barnes used the Minimi of the Humvee to lay down a series of controlled bursts. It acted like a wedge to keep the walls of the undead from closing in again.
Plugging his ears at the deafening noise, Jesse Zanato rode along in the back transport bay. Zanato looked so frightened that Greer thought he would piss himself.
“BLOODY HELL!” Greer roared as he slammed on the brakes. The Komatsu screeched to a halt, and the Humvee nearly crashed into it as Jennifer Hurley skidded it to a stop.
Standing in the open street were two women, petrified with fear as the vehicles drove up to them.
“I’ll be damned,” Noble said. “Survivors.”
Squinting through the windshield Hurley gasped, “Rachael?”
“Do you know her?” Barnes asked.
“It’s my divorce lawyer,” Jennifer Hurley answered, unable to believe her own eyes.
“Your what?” Barnes shouted over a couple bursts of the gun. A clearing opened up and, looking down at the two women cringing in the street from the terrible noise of their heavy machine guns, he shouted, “Get in!”
Alyssa and Rachael climbed into the Humvee while Barnes and Noble continued to lay down cover fire, chiseling into a dozen approaching zoms and cutting them down like annoying weeds.
Fastening her seatbelt, Alyssa looked up from the back and glanced over at Hurley, who sat in the front passenger seat. She then looked back over at Rachael. “You two know each other?”
“This is one of my clients, Jennifer Candace Hurley,” Rachael said, making introductions. Turning back to Jennifer she added, “Jennifer Hurley, this is Alyssa Briggs.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alyssa said, sharing a gracious smile.
“Likewise,” Hurley replied looking at Alyssa through the rear-view mirror. As she stared in the mirror, from the corner of her eye she noticed the other woman was staring at her with eyes like cold daggers. Jen quickly looked away, her heart sinking in her chest. It felt as if she was fending of an anxiety attack. Similar to the feeling she would get coming off of a dizzying roller coaster and trying not to hurl.
General Greer’s voice came onto the com, “Oscar Mike is impatient boys, I need me a clear road.”
“Yes, sir!” Barnes and Noble shouted in unison. Training their fire on the same spot, Barnes and Noble plowed a path for them to escape from.
Gears grinding, Hurley choked the throttle. The Humvee coughed and then the engine died. “Shit!” she cursed, twisting the key in the ignition and firing it right back up.
Rachael put her hand on Hurley’s shoulder and smiled at her. It seemed to calm her down some, and she got the vehicle going again.
With a crackle, the radio came on and the general’s voice bellowed, “I blame myself for things going south, and I apologize for letting you all down. But I’m asking you to trust me to get you out of this godforsaken city and to safety. I k
now it’s a lot to ask all considered, but if you put your faith in me one last time, I promise I won’t be letting you down again.”
From the back seat of the Komatsu, Zanato asked, “So, where are we headed anyway?”
General Greer pulled out a cigar from a cubby on the dash and lit it up. Speaking with his mouth full, he said, “It’s a top-secret military installation called Sector Twenty-Seven. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
Zanato looked over at the general with a puzzled expression. “Sector Twenty-Seven? I’ve never even heard of such a place.”
“You ever hear of Area Fifty-One?”
“Yeah,” Zanato replied. “Aliens and shit, right?”
“Right. You’ve heard rumors, but you know it exists because it’s not exactly a big secret. Never really was. People knew it was there, they just didn’t know what they did there. But you’ve never heard of Sector Twenty-Seven. Want to know why? Because if you had it wouldn’t be secret now, would it?”
“That makes sense,” Zanato affirmed.
Ulysses Noble popped down for a moment and fished up the M32 grenade launcher. “A parting gift,” he said, flashing his pearly whites at Zanato, who looked at him with unease.
“What will that do?”
“Go BOOM.” Noble replied, then he climbed back up to fire off his devastating volley of forty-millimeter grenades.
Back inside the Komatsu, Zanato could hear Noble scream, “Sayonara, mother fuckers!” just before deafening explosions rocked the cars and a series of fireballs erupted on the asphalt stretched out behind them.
The wall of fire erected by the subsequent blasts effectively cut off the march of the living dead that doggedly pursued them.
Stopping at the prominence of the hill at the edge of town, the team of vehicles rolled to a halt. The dark contours of a vast cityscape were propped up against a bright horizon. All that was left of Newcastle City was stained with ash. Glistening skyscrapers had turned into a dog-eared version of the same; leaving the once gleaming city a charred and ruined wasteland. The city had become a decrepit ghost town in just two weeks of the outbreak.