Machines of the Dead

by David Bernstein

  Damn it.

  He began reloading the hook, leaving the line on the ground, when the steel gate at the end of the alley began to make noise. Shit, the dead were clawing at it, the noise of broken glass attracting their attention. Jack felt his legs go weak, but then he remembered Chambers telling him the alley was safe, that the gate was reinforced and would hold anything back short of a tank ramming it. Still the sounds of the dead pushing and clawing at the steel made him anxious.

  This was going to be more difficult than he thought. He could go back to the bunker and take the sewer entrance route. He had the map, but the sewers led to manholes in the middle of the streets. He would have to run from the one in front of his building, as long as a vehicle wasn’t parked over it, to the building itself, and he had no idea how many undead were walking around there or if the doors to the place were even unlocked. He had left his keys in his apartment, and if the doors were missing, the glass blown out, or the lobby was filled with the undead, he’d be screwed. No, staying the course he was on, was his best option.

  Aiming the grappling gun at the window again, he let a breath out, concentrated, and fired. This time the hook went into the open window. Placing the gun down, he began to pull the rope slowly, until the hook caught onto something. He tugged on the line a few times, making sure the hooks were secure and hadn’t attached themselves to something easily moveable, like a lamp or mop bucket. Next, he reached up and grabbed onto the rope, lifting his feet off the ground. He waited a moment. The rope still felt strong; the hooks were definitely caught on something solid, heavy. Standing back on the ground, he studied the rope. It was so thin. What if it broke and he fell, breaking his bones? Would the doc load him up with bots, making him like new again? The man had done it once before. The thought of getting injured and having the bots there, back in the bunker to aid him, actually made him feel better about the whole situation.

  Jack ran the rope through his harness like Chambers had shown him, tying the correct knots, slipping the line through the belay, and attaching the ascenders. With the help of the belay, Jack didn’t have to worry about tiring or falling back to the ground; the device would keep him in place, making it easier to rest or use his hands. The tricky part was the extra cord that looped around his right foot. Using one ascender to aid him in climbing, there was another cord, looped at the end for his foot that he would use to push off from so that it wasn’t all arms and upper body strength. With that done, leaving the grappling gun on the ground, Jack began his ascent.

  As he climbed the wall, ascending above the height of the gate, Jack could see out onto the street. There were a few undead walking by, in and around the vehicles, or on the sidewalks, but a small mob had formed at the alley’s entrance, like a concert crowd waiting for the arena to open. More and more zombies were walking into the mass, enlarging it. Except for the rattling of the gate, the city was too quiet. A gentle breeze blew, filled with the stench of garbage and decaying food.

  About halfway to the window, Jack thought he heard humming, like the sound of a far away air-conditioner. Looking out over the crowd, he realized it was coming from them. The sound was so disturbing Jack thought about cutting his venture short. He waited a moment, then decided to move on. He couldn’t turn back at the slightest horror. There were sure to be plenty and he was relatively safe, at least in the alley, though he didn’t like the looks of the amassing crowd, and hoped the gate would hold.

  Jack continued to climb, and soon enough, he found himself just below the sixth floor, supply closet window. As with every time he stopped, Jack secured his position with the belay, and waited there for a moment, catching his breath.

  Ready for the final ascent, Jack reached up. He grabbed onto the ledge and began pulling himself up, coming face to face with Jerry Standt, the building’s superintendent, and now a member of the undead.

  The zombie reached forward, mouth open ready to chomp. Jack let go of the ledge and fell, feeling as if his life was over, until he jerked to a stop, the belay doing its job. He was now just below the window again. The undead super was leaning out, reaching for him. Jack hurried, trying to un-strap the machine gun from his shoulder, but in his haste, dropped it. The weapon fell, but he managed to catch the strap on his boot. Breathing a sigh of relief, he felt the zombie’s fingers touching his head. Using the wall to brace himself, Jack placed both feet against the building, securing himself and the gun. He grabbed a hold of the former super’s right arm and pulled as hard as he could.

  The zombie came partially from the window, its face the same, mouth gnashing and showing no sign it cared about its predicament. It only wanted Jack’s flesh.

  Jack continued to pull the body of the undead halfway out the window, but it was stuck on something. The zombie’s face was less than a foot from Jack’s, its breath making him want to gag. He kept pulling, yanking with all he had. Something popped, and then the arm came free, the ripping of cloth and sinew echoing in Jack’s ears. Disgusted by the sight, Jack quickly let go of the limb. Looking up, he saw that the zombie was leaning farther out the window, its lower half free from what it had been caught on. He reached up, grabbing the former super by the back of his collar and pulled, kicking away from the wall as he did so, adding his entire body’s weight behind the maneuver.

  The undead’s body fell from the window, Jack helping it along as he moved to the side as best he could, but the thing latched onto him, wrapping its one arm around his neck, like a distressed child holding onto its mother. Embraced in a hug, the undead brought its mouth to Jack’s throat. He got a hand up quickly, pushing his palm against the thing’s chin, keeping its mouth shut and jaws away. With his other hand, Jack reached for his knife. He withdrew the weapon from its sheath, gripped it tightly and shoved it into the zombie’s neck, just under its chin. The knife went in easily, but the corpse kept fighting. Shit, the blade wasn’t long enough. He pulled the knife out, then shoved it into the thing’s right eye socket—the eyeball bursting—pushing it in up to the hilt. The zombie shuddered, then released its grip and fell to the ground, landing a few feet from the M4, which at some point had slipped off his boot. Jack thought about going back down for it, but the barrel was bent at a 90-degree angle, now useless.

  All that remained of his weapons were his gore-covered knife and the Taser, which only had three re-loads.

  Jack pulled himself into the window, crawled into the supply closet and sat against the wall, breathing heavily and severely disappointed. That was only one zombie and look what happened, but he had made it into the building.

  Sitting there, Jack took one of the water bottles from his pack and gulped half of its contents. His mouth was exceedingly dry. He would have to conserve from now on, not knowing how long he would be gone from the bunker, or if he’d find any suitable drinking-water in the building. If it wasn’t bottled, he wasn’t ingesting it.

  Replacing the bottle to his pack, Jack rested a moment longer. The supply closet was dark, the only light coming from the window. He saw shelves lining the walls to either side, but half the room was shrouded in gloom. Jack made his way over to the door, felt for the light switch and flipped it on. Nothing happened. He tried the switch again with the same results. Either the electricity was off, or the super hadn’t gotten around to changing the bulb.

  Taking out his flashlight, a Maglite mini, Jack surveyed the room. On the shelves were cleaners, mop heads, boxes, and leather workmen’s gloves, nothing useful. In the corner next to him were two mops with wooden handles. Wherever the bucket was, it wasn’t in the closet. Most buildings used the basements to store supplies, but for some reason, this building had an additional supply closet on the sixth floor.

  Something bumped the door, startling Jack. Then he heard scratching, the same kind of scratching he heard when his wife was pawing at the bedroom door. The noise from the window breaking must have alerted a member of the undead. Hopefully, it was only one. What if there were more? A hallway full? His mission would be over. His
journey was looking more and more perilous, and more and more like he should turn around and go back underground.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t go back yet, not without first checking for survivors. And if anyone was alive, it had to be Zaun. That guy was a paranoid dude, and a fighting machine. Jack smiled, thinking about his friend, almost forgetting about the zombie outside the door. He had to work his way at least, to the 23rd floor, Zaun’s floor, and the floor he and Jess had lived on.

  Grabbing one of the mops, Jack broke off the mop-end. From there he took out his knife and began whittling away at the splintered end. When he was finished, he had a crudely made spear; perfect for keeping a zombie at bay, or spearing it in the head.

  Taking the other mop, he loosened the metal bracket that held the mop-head on, then broke the stick in half. Now Jack had a bludgeoning weapon; a misshapen battle mace, and something he could use to bash in the heads of the undead. It wasn’t ideal, but it looked like it would do the job.

  With the spear tucked between his back and the pack, and the mace in hand, Jack took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Chapter 9

  A lone zombie stood outside the door, coming forward with shuffling footsteps like an elderly person in need of a walker. It didn’t hesitate at seeing Jack holding a weapon. It didn’t duck or dodge when he swung the weapon. The crude mace’s metal head struck the zombie on its left cheek, slicing open the skin and shattering its top row of teeth. The zombie lost its balance for a moment, slamming into the doorframe, but it righted and came forward. Jack raised the stick over his head, not having enough room to swing it the way he wanted to, and brought the mace down, over and over, onto the zombie’s head, until the forehead caved in and the undead thing collapsed.

  He stood over the corpse, hands shaking and heart thumping almost painfully. He didn’t recognize the dead man, but if he had he would’ve acted the same, like he did with the super. Most of the building’s residents were strangers to each other. It was the same all over the Metropolitan Area. People had family and friends living here and there, and that’s who a person talked and spent time with. A very different picture than some of the smaller communities and towns Jack had visited, where a person knew his neighbor as well as every store clerk in town. Jack had become friends with Zaun, but everyone else living on the hall was a “hello” and a “goodbye.”

  Jack did his best to scrape off the flesh caught in the crevices of the mace’s head, but small pieces, like food stuck between a person’s teeth, remained, and he wasn’t about to go picking them out with his fingers. Cleaning it as best he could, he stepped over the dead body and into the hallway. To his right, a few feet away, were two more dead bodies, both with their heads sliced cleanly off. He couldn’t know for sure if the deceased had been killed when they were alive, or un-alive, but maybe, along with electricity and destroying the brain, chopping off the head worked too. Made sense, he thought.

  He wanted to call out, check apartments, but didn’t want to risk attracting more undead. And it might’ve been selfish, but he wanted to get to the twenty third floor and see if his friend was still alive. Together with Zaun, he would have a much better chance of rescuing people; of growing the group, making the task at hand even easier. He hoped to leave the apartment with a small army of weapon-carrying civilians. He never did discuss how many survivors he was allowed to bring back. Fuck it, he would bring as many as he could and if that were a problem, he’d mention the escape tunnel and have the refugees exit Manhattan through there.

  Slowly and cautiously, Jack worked his way to the stairwell door. Looking through the narrow glass window, he couldn’t make out a thing. It looked like the electricity was out for the entire building. Clicking on his flashlight, he shined it through the window and saw that the immediate area was clear, up or down a flight, the stairs working in a vertical zigzag pattern could be a different story.

  Jack pressed the push-bar as quietly as possible and opened the door. He shined the light down the stairs to the next landing and saw nothing, then did the same going up the stairs. He waited a moment, listening. The eerie silence was almost too much to bear, but considering what could’ve been waiting for him, he was thankful to hear nothing.

  With the flashlight’s beam leading the way, Jack took each flight of stairs slowly and quietly. There would be no sneaking up on anyone or anything, the light giving him away. At each level, he peered through the glass into the sunlit hallways, making sure to turn the light off as he approached each one. So far, only floors 10 and 14 had a few undead on them, but almost every floor was littered with corpses, many of which had their heads severed, as well as arms and legs. To Jack, it looked like someone had come through and slaughtered person after person, or undead after undead, like some crazy character in an ultra-violent video game.

  On the twentieth floor, as he glanced through the window, a zombie that was standing and facing the door spotted him. Jack backed away quickly, but it was too late. The undead thing was at the door, pawing at the glass and working its jaw. Jack’s heart sank a little. The undead was a young female, and looked to be no older than sixteen years old. A thought, sudden and awful, flashed through his mind: all the dead and undead children in the city. There must be thousands, maybe even millions. His chest felt heavy, and he wanted to vomit again. He thought he had seen the most awful things, thought about the worst possibilities, but he hadn’t. How could he face an undead infant, or even a four-year-old member of the undead?

  Jack closed his eyes, needing the momentary escape, as he was safe in the stairwell. He heard a click. Opening his eyes, he saw the door opening. Shit, Dr. Reynolds had been wrong; the undead were intelligent. Jack shuffled backward toward the next flight of stairs. Then it dawned on him. The undead weren’t smart, capable of thought or reason; the zombie had just pushed up against the door’s push-bar. Relief flooded his mind, but it was only temporary, as the undead corpse, arms out, was coming towards him.

  He swung the mace repeatedly, bashing the zombie in the side of its head. The thing’s right eyeball popped out of its socket, dangling from the optic nerves. Another couple of whacks and the undead corpse fell down; dead for good this time, the side of its head a mangled mess of matted of hair, skull, and flesh. Looking at the mace, Jack saw that some of the girl’s hair had gotten caught in the weapon’s crevices, along with pieces of flesh. He didn’t know if he could carry it around with the girl’s hair in it; he’d have to pull the strands out. Upon doing so, he noticed the wood, just below the mace-head, was badly cracked. The weapon was useless. One more whack and the mace would only be a stick. He tossed the weapon away as something thudded against the stairwell’s door. Shining the flashlight’s beam at the small window, Jack saw the face of another zombie. Its nose was missing, revealing the thing’s gore-filled nasal cavity.

  He pulled out the spear, his only other weapon being a knife. Should he run? Fight? The door clicked and was opening. Screw it, he would stay and finish off the next one too. With the spear, he could jab it in the head from afar, keeping it away until he killed it, leaving one less zombie to deal with on the way back down.

  Readying his weapon, he watched as the zombie, a large undead man, standing about six feet plus, walked into the stairwell. Damn, why couldn’t it have been a little old, undead lady? As the door was shutting behind the big guy, it stopped halfway, colliding into another member of the undead, also making its way into the stairwell. Now, Jack had two undead to deal with, and not being able to see into the hallway, he had no idea how many more there might be.

  The one thing he did know was that the undead were mindless machines, programmed to walk forward and search for flesh. They couldn’t reason, didn’t care, and they couldn’t open doors, at least not doors without easy-to-push handles.

  With only three floors to climb until he reached his destination, he decided to flee. Could the undead climb stairs? He had no clue, but even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to open the stairwell doors, l
eaving them trapped there. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have to deal with any zombies, for there might be plenty on the other side of the door too.

  The ascent to the 23rd floor was easy going, and clear. Opening the door, he found the hallway void of any bodies, dead or undead. There were however, blood stains covering areas of the floor and walls, as if a battle had ensued and the corpses were removed.

  Moving down the hall, Jack saw that all the apartment doors, save Zaun’s, were open, including his own. Upon coming to his apartment, he listened from outside the doorway. Hearing nothing, he looked inside, and saw that at least the immediate hallway leading to the kitchen was clear.

  He went in.

  The place had been ransacked. The kitchen cabinet doors were all open. The foodstuff, cans, sugar, teas, and whatnot were all gone. Some glassware and dishes were on the floor, mostly broken. Checking the hall pantry, it had been cleaned out as well. Jack went to the fridge and saw that it was empty too, except for a few items that he couldn’t make out, since they had rotted too badly. The odor was nauseating. He quickly shut the door and headed for the bedroom, his and Jess’ bedroom.

  The room was exactly how he remembered leaving it: the bed unmade, Jess’ and his pairs of slippers on the floor by the bed, her hairbrush on the nightstand. Going over to the long dresser, Jack picked up the couple’s wedding photo. Tears welled in his eyes. She looked so happy, so beautiful.

  After a few moments, he wiped his face, removed the picture, folded it so that none of the creases would mar his or Jess’ figures, and placed it in one of his pockets. After that, he went for his wallet, which he usually left on the nightstand. It was gone. Panic hit him like a sledgehammer, and he began to shake. He didn’t care about the wallet or anything in it; he just wanted the picture of his wife that was inside.