Long Live The Dead

by Barry Michael

  When his hands were free from his feet he was able to sit a little more comfortably and focus on the delicate task of separating his bound hands without opening up one of his wrists, all the time watching the open doorway.

  Walking down the dark grey hallway his eyes still adjusting back to how dim everything was here Robert tried not to think of how much his home looked like a colossal sepulcher, dull stone walls stretching on for hundreds of feet like a featureless labyrinth.

  Somewhere deep inside this network of hallways and doors creatures waited for them, not minotaurs but men, perhaps soulless ghouls that would kill them no less dead.

  When they reached the door to the weapon storage room he tried the handle and found it locked.

  “Stand back.” he said stepping back himself and taking careful aim at the lock. Three deafening roars later and the shredded lock gave way to a stiff kick and the door flew open.

  Turning to Fallon and Baudoin he said “You two watch the hall while we load up.”

  Slipping inside he looked around the small room packed solidly wall to wall with shot guns, automatic rifles, handguns and a collection of accessories enough to outfit a small army.

  As peaceful and nice a man as Graham Greene had been he knew the realities that a post-apocalyptic world might bring and he wanted to make sure that they would be able to defend themselves if need be. He probably never imagined that they would have to defend themselves from their own people.

  “What do you want Henry?” Robert asked.

  “Give me an AR-15.”

  Robert got down one of the large rifles and started to slide in one of the preloaded 30 round curved clips when Jackson stopped him. “No, wait – put the big clip on.”

  Robert looked at him for a second. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna have to fire left handed and it’s gonna be hard to reload.”

  Setting the rifle down Robert opened the draw that held the massive Betamag double drum magazine. He slid the 100 round capacity clip onto the gun before hefting it up for Jackson to take.

  “Jeez, Henry this thing has to weigh twenty pounds”

  Taking the gun in his left hand he held it out at arms length. “Nah, fifteen max.”

  Jackson stepped out and Fallon slipped in. He took one of the MP-5’s off of the rack and slipped a standard clip into it. Presenting it to her along with two extra clips he said “you have 15 rounds each clip, you eject them here” he showed her the release button “this is locked, you can switch it to fire more here” he turned the lever to point at the red full auto icon. Taking it from him she switched it back to single fire mode and test ejected the clip. She left and Baudoin came in, he quickly repeated the demonstration again before turning to the racks for himself.

  Not wanting to take any chances he grabbed two more MP-5’s loaded them and slung them over his shoulder before throwing six more preloaded clips into a canvas bag. Finally he took two Neostead bullpup shotguns, each were already stocked to their thirteen round capacities but he added two more boxes of shells to the bag just in case.

  Exiting the room he pulled it shut wishing that he had not had to shoot the lock open, if it turned out that it wasn’t ghouls who had invaded the bunker but a band of marauders they now had access to an arsenal of weapons. But only if they found it and in theory they were all down stairs – it was a chance that they had to take.

  They moved quickly back down the hallway towards the main junction, meeting back up with the others he distributed the guns.

  He handed Ira and Tommy the MP-5’s and two spare clips each then offered one of the Neosteads to Lucas. He examined the uncommon weapon with his eyes then shook his head preferring the Katana he was holding.

  Robert didn’t force the issue, he just slipped the second shotgun into the canvas bag along with the spare shells and they walked quickly towards the end of the right hand corridor, he explained his plan as they walked.

  “okay there’s no way of knowing how far they’ve gotten, I think we need to split up again and cover more floors. Same teams as before, Tommy you guys ride the elevator down to four and sweep up to three and we’ll work our way down and meet you somewhere in the middle.”

  No one objected to the plan so they split the groups again and started to search the underground complex for survivors.

  XXVII

  Robert led his group down the flight of concrete steps with the rapid movements of rote memory, the muzzle of his well maintained compact South African shotgun leading the way.

  When he reached level one he swept the guns site around and aimed it into every corner looking for a target. His heart beat up into his throat so hard it threatened to choke him, he had to force himself to take several deep breaths to calm down.

  He tried not to imagine who would be the first person he would see, he knew every single person in the bunker and one by one their faces were flashing into his mind and one by one he had to banish them to the shadows.

  No names, he thought, no names. A new thought struck him, he had to be careful, he couldn’t just shoot indiscriminately he had to make sure that they were gone before he pulled the trigger.

  Then he saw the first of them. The woman stood there, her back was turned and he tried not to think about who it might be, they were just stood there staring at a wall, their head cocked to the side.

  “Hello, identify yourself.”

  The figure turned suddenly, head whipping around, her attention ripped from the smear of blood on the wall that had held her hypnotized.

  Even covered in blood he recognized the woman and he had to chant in his head over and over again no names, no names, as she screamed and threw herself towards him.

  His finger squeezed the trigger and before the woman could even hear the blast her head disintegrated to a chunky red mist. And only the four of them were left to listen to the echoes in the aftermath.

  He wasn’t sure if he was breathing louder or if it just sounded like that to his traumatized ears.

  Baudoin came forward and placed a hand gently on his shoulder, he couldn’t just stand there he thought, he had to move forward. Taking a moment to collect his thoughts he slid the pump handle forward expelling the spent round and chambering a new one.

  He was already moving by the time the smoking shell hit the floor, he stepped over the body of the woman who had once been his teacher and continued on down the hallway.

  The elevator door opened with a metallic ding and they covered the door with both MP-5’s and the Katana until they were sure that the car was empty.

  They slipped in and Tommy hit the bottom button and held the door close button. Looking around he tried to ignore the puddle of blood in the corner, it still looked fresh. He focused instead on the lights marking off the floors as they passed and caught himself holding his breath.

  When the doors opened on the fourth level the overhead light was flickering, that wasn’t doing that a few days ago he thought, then chided himself for it and tried to focus on searching the shadows for bodies. Bodies that may or may not be dead and could get up either way.

  He switched on the light mounted on the front of his gun and reached down to show Ira how to do the same.

  Lucas stepped out first and cleared the blind spots to either side of the doors – there was nothing there.

  Carefully they made their way down the hallway the blinking light intermittently illuminated the trails of bloody smeared handprints down the walls.

  Coming to the first door the handle was coated with dried blood, silently they flanked the door Ira to one side and Lucas on the other. Tommy braced himself and readied his weapon on the door.

  Lucas leaned forward and slowly depressed the handle all the way and then threw the door open, stepping back and out of the way. The room beyond was completely dark and silent. Tommy stood where he was and swept his light around the room, Ira stepped forward and kneeled in the doorway sweeping his light around low.

  Keeping his gun readied Tom
my reached slowly inside the room and flicked on the light. Nothing. Looking around the small simple room - one of the sixty identical family quarters quickly revealed that there had been a struggle but no one was there now.

  Leaving to door open and the light on they moved to the next door, repeating the same steps only faster now that they had done it once.

  Crisscrossing the hallway back and forth they cleared room after room. On the second hallway they came to a door that was locked.

  Lucas and Tommy looked at each other and then at the door. Keeping an eye down the hallway in both directions knocked on the door and tried to think about who lived there.

  There was no answer. “Mrs. Ruiz, Mr. Ruiz are you in there?” he knocked again.

  He could just make out hushed talking inside. “T-This is Tommy Sterns, are you okay?

  “Tommy? What’s going on?” Mr. Ortiz asked through the door.

  “It’s kind of hard to explain sir, but everything is going to be okay. Is everybody alright in there, how many are there?”

  “Y-yes, we’re okay – it’s just me and my wife”

  “Alright good, can you tell us what happened?”

  “I don’t know – people just started going crazy, they came down from the ‘shop, covered in blood and they were acting crazy, attacking people”

  Tommy closed his eyes, it definitely sounded like ghouls had somehow gotten inside.

  “Okay Mr. Ruiz listen, we- we are going to and go and try to find more survivors. We’ll come back soon to get you.”

  “O-Okay Tommy, bless you. Be careful.”

  He stepped back from the door and looked at the others, trying not to let his tears show in his eyes or his voice.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  They moved onto the next door.

  Greene listened to the elevator doors close before he stepped down out of the Humvee and making sure that the door was still unlocked closed it quietly, just in case anyone might still be close enough to hear it.

  He looked around quickly deciding what to do first. There was a spare key to the Hummer but when he checked the hook inside the lockbox on the wall for it, it wasn’t there. That forgetful fool Pennebaker probably still had it on him so that left him two choices. He had to find Pennebaker or ‘Stains’ if he was going to get out of here. Pennebaker could be anywhere so finding him would be problematic, besides he’d much rather end the tubby little blight anyway while he had the chance.

  He had listened to the plan so he knew exactly where to find him, he just had to make sure that he would be able to take care of the Monk and the kid too.

  He smiled at the thought of that, he would probably try to take out the monk quickly better not to take any chances with him, but the Ira and Tommy he would take a little more time with. Make it hurt.

  Stalking down the hallway towards the Armory he started to think about all of the things he could do. He wouldn’t want to take too much time, just kill them painfully and slow then get out of there before the others made it down stairs.

  He thought about killing all of them himself, but then he wouldn’t want to face down probably a hundred zombies himself… maybe if he let them try to deal with the hoard and then when they were out of ammo and exhausted he could rig up a flame thrower and have himself a barbeque?

  Maybe later – first things first he had to make sure that he would be able to get away.

  Pushing open the wrecked door he mentally thanked the stupidity of the coward Howard and looked around the racks to select what weapons he wanted.

  He started with one of the MP-5’s and grabbed a handful of extra clips pushing them into a canvas bag storage bag. Then he grabbed a couple of grenades off of the shelf with each hand, two “Flash-Bangs” for stunning and two concussions should he actually need the stopping power.

  Finally he grabbed a Neostead and stared to pump the handle forward ejecting all of the standard shells, he had something a little more fun in mind.

  Pulling out the bottom draw of the shotgun cabinet he exposed the selection of specialty shells and grabbed a box of “sock” shells – cartridges containing small bean bags used for crowd control. They were supposed to be non-lethal, only hurt like hell – but they had been warned during weapons training that even the non-penetrative round could kill with a head shot.

  Thinking about the beating he had handed Sterns the day before he chuckled as loaded the shotgun – the next one was going to be fatal.

  When he was done a thought occurred to him. Setting the shotgun down temporarily he opened up another draw and pulled out a set of night vision goggles. He slipped them on and grabbing the gun again walked out and on further down the hall.

  He opened the door to the main electrical breaker room and swept the room with the barrel of the MP-5. The room was empty, relaxing he let the rifle fall to its strap on his shoulder and headed for the breaker panels.

  “You aren’t still afraid of the dark are you ‘stains’?” he chuckled as he killed the lights on all the lower levels.

  XXVIII

  When they had gotten to the first corner the section of flickering lights had stopped, everything overhead now stayed on solidly but they kept the gun mounted lights on anyway for unlit rooms and dark little spaces.

  So far the only survivors they had found were the Ruiz family, in a couple of other rooms here and there they had found seven less fortunate souls which they had dispatched quickly. People who had probably fled down here to escape the madness above and had not been quick enough or brought death with them in their own veins without knowing.

  Halfway down the back hallway a ghoul had come out of a room drawn by the sound of gunfire, upon seeing them in the hall it bellowed a high pitched howl and rushed for them.

  Lucas was closest and thrust the tip of the Katana up under its jaw, he twisted his wrist and the zombie’s head twisted with it, the strangled falsetto scream still wailing from its throat.

  With his left hand he pushed against the back of the curved blade and propelled the ghoul into a nearby wall, pressing until a sickening pop brought silence.

  Gently he set the lifeless body down and let gravity carry it off of the blade then wiped both sides of the tip clean on its clothing.

  With a glance and nod of agreement they were ready and started down the corridor again, they only made it a few steps before the lights went out.

  Robert swore out loud as everything was plunged into absolute blackness.

  “What the hell? Did the power blow?” Jackson asked.

  “I don’t know – Baudoin, where are you?” he asked reaching out to where he remembered him being just moments before.

  “Here.” the answer came as a body stepped forward into his hand.

  “Hold still, where’s the gun?” He felt blindly along until he found the MP-5 and moved his palm down the gun until he found the switch for the muzzle mounted flashlight.

  “Everyone mind your eyes I’m turning on a light.”

  He closed his own eyes and clicked it on. The light cut a sharp white wedge out of the darkness and cast a slight extra glow, enough to make out the faint shapes of the people around him.

  “Here,” he said stepping towards Fallon and engaged her light as well.

  The light from both guns built up enough ambient radiance that they could see in a small sphere around them in addition to the bright white beams.

  He turned to Jackson, the AR-15 wasn’t modified with a light either. “Do you have any kind of light with you?”

  “No, don’t worry about – just someone point a light and I’ll shoot.”

  “Okay, well we’re about half way, we might as well carry on around the loop and head towards the stairs that way.”

  He nodded the direction ahead of them and glanced around the group, they all nodded and he started to walk. Baudoin walked next to him lighting their way and Jackson behind with Fallon following at the rear - walking backwards and shining her light behind them to make sure nothing and no one c
ame at them out of the darkness at their backs.

  They came to the end of hallway and just before they reached the corner they heard something, a sound something like a wheeze and the last dregs of a drink being sucked through a straw.

  They paused just a moment in preparation then stepped out quickly to face the unknown. Bringing their lights up and sweeping the hall they identified the source of the noise.

  It had only been a few days since he had last seen Smith but the change in his appearance was drastic – most of his neck was gone and he was breathing through the gaping maw, gargling in his own dark clotting blood.

  In the harsh flashlight beam his skin looked paper white, even his dark hair was ashen and grey, he eyes were starting to turn milky but he was drawn to the lights in the darkness. Staggering forward and reaching out with both hands he opened his mouth and let out a sad desperate sound like a wounded animal.

  Robert froze for a second, lost in the wonder of what could have happened, had Smith and Baker been attacked, had they brought the infection home?

  Baudoin put a steel jacketed round through Smith’s head and in the echo he realized that it didn’t matter now, whatever had happened didn’t matter. All they could do now was deal with it.

  Smith collapsed backwards and his body let out a final sad death rattle as it hit the floor and the last of its air was knocked out.

  Stepping forward they swept the area for any more bodies or ghouls. There were none and they went back to checking doors, as he reached out for the next handle Robert suddenly noticed that there was light coming from under the door.

  He thought about where they were, outside of the main medical lab. He tried the handle and found it locked so he knocked loudly, glancing at the light under the door and further down the hall to make sure they were not being snuck up on.

  There was no answer. He knocked again louder and listened, there was some kind of noise from inside – movement.