by Will Lemen
"The sewers blocked, the only way out of here is up," Derek noticed.
"Good, then we've got no choice but to climb out of this fucking place, and there's only five eaters standing in our way," I whispered. "We can kill two of them each before they even know we're here."
"I'll start with the one on the right, and then take out the one behind it," Derek planned. "You take out the two on the left, and we'll share the one in the middle. Okay?"
"Roger that," I whispered, as I gripped my tomahawk even tighter. "On three, one... two... three!
At the count of three, we rushed into the small group of oblivious cannibals, catching them by surprise as we had planned.
We hacked our way through our first two designated targets with a great deal of malice aforethought, which was becoming somewhat of a regular routine in the vast arena of the undead Armageddon.
Although our techniques for eliminating the horrible monsters was beginning to take on a sort of robotic essence, and to someone that for some reason hadn't been exposed to the rigors of the never ending zombie battlefields, it might seem as if we were cold and callus in our methods.
On the contrary, although our methods were coldblooded at times (most of the time), they were very efficient, and more calculated than callus. Although if you were to ask the zombie hordes, they might take exception to that remark.
Of course, like they always say.
Brutality is in the eye of the beholder.
However, nobody I ever knew was ready to die in the jaws of the undead, just to prove that they were a nice guy or gal.
So as the first four zombies bought their proverbial farms and fell onto the mud that covered the bottom of the gloomy sewer, Derek and I set our sights on the remaining menace that was now very aware of our presents.
The unnatural monstrosity lunged at Derek who was in the process of pulling the blade of his meat cleaver out of the middle of number three's split brainpan.
It was close enough to him that he could smell the zombie's road kill breath over the odor of decaying flesh and defecation emitting from it and the other zombies whose stench lingered in the stale air of the sewer.
It was rare for me to relinquish one of my weapons, especially in the middle of a fight.
However when certain situations dictate that it is necessary for me to do so to save the life of a fellow human, I usually, although hesitantly, will grudgingly capitulate.
As the semi-warm breath spewed from the attacking brain-eater's drooling lips advanced the flies before it, the blade of my razor sharp tomahawk creased the rotting skin, bone, and brain of the obnoxious cadaver, ending its halitosis laced aggression forever.
"Nice throw Jack!" Derek exclaimed, congratulating me on my life saving ax toss.
"It's the Indian blood in me," I said, as I pulled the skull stuck warrior's ax from the head of the last downed corpse.
Then, holding my trusty tomahawk over my head, I let out the quietest Indian War Whoop that I could whisper, and swatted at the orphaned flies still hovering over their former owners that lay at my feet.
"Time to leave Dodge, there's only one way out and that's up," I announced softly, as I wiped off the blood and maggots from my small battle ax on the shirt of the number five deceased, and then I began to make my way up the loosely packed earthen ramp to the street above, with Derek close behind.
******
"This sewer is a dead end, the tunnel has collapsed and there's too many of them down in the system now, this is nothing like it was in Texas," Beth complained. "There are probably many more collapsed tunnels ahead, making it easier for the zombies to get to us, they're just falling into the sewers now."
Jolene took a quick appraisal of the situation.
"We'll have to take a detour and go down one of these side pipes of the bigger tunnel, maybe we can get through that way?"
"It's either that, or we go back up onto the street," Beth said. "I say we try the smaller tunnels first."
"I agree, at least as long as we can stand the smell," Jolene deduced.
The girls entered the smaller sewer on the right side, rejecting the one on the left after hearing buzzing sounds emanating from it.
They made their way through tunnel after tunnel, taking detour after detour every time they came to a blockage in the system from either the collapse of a sewer pipe, horde of undead homicidal maniacs, or the sound of swarming flies echoing through an open passage way.
The women traveled most of the morning through the crumbling system of concrete pipes that comprised the labyrinth of sewers under the town, dodging the crumbling structures and the zombies within, until they could no longer avoid either.
"We can't go any farther in these passages, they're getting way too crowded, and we're running out of alternative sewer lines to follow," Beth insisted, pointing to a group of dead cannibals frothing at the mouth near the exit of their tunnel. "Besides, I can't take the smell any longer, I need some fresh air."
"Me too!" Jolene whispered, so as not to alert the foaming undead ahead of them. "And my back hurts from walking bent over in these small tunnels."
"If we run by them quickly, they'll never be able to follow us up the side of that muddy crater," Beth surmised. "But we'll have to be fast, and whatever you do, don't fall down or you'll be doomed."
"I guess if they get too close, I'll hit them with the butt of my gun?" Jolene whispered again, raising her rifle.
"Shoot if you absolutely have to, most of the sound of the gunshot will be muffled by the dirt and will be directed straight up, so the zombies up there will have to be real close to be able to zero in on it," Beth asserted, as she too made ready to make a run for it. "I'll count to three and then we both run, okay?"
"Okay," Jolene agreed nervously, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her weapon.
"One... two... three!" Beth unintentionally yelled, as she counted out the last number and began to run toward the slobbering mutants.
She passed through the innumerable flies that encompassed the horde, and made her way to the base of the bomb crater that comprised their escape route.
However, her impromptu shout at the end of her countdown had prematurely alerted the stagnant zombies of the girl's planned departure.
Although Beth had been successful in her bid for freedom from the underworld, and made it passed the mob of undead corpses, Jolene's attempt was quite different.
On the count of three, Jolene's nervousness had caused her to trip over her own feet as she began to follow Beth toward the undead and out of the sewer system.
"Shit!" She yelled, as she fell face first into five inches of maggot-covered mud that caked the bottom of the sewer pipe.
Although the zombies had a hard enough time just walking, and the muddy surface at the bottom of the concrete tunnels exacerbated their efforts, their proximity to Jolene made her situation dire.
As Jolene struggled to stand up in the slick muddy tube, wipe the fly larva from her face, and still maintain a hold on her rifle at the same time, the ravenous maniacal creatures were bearing down on her fast.
With the zombies between Jolene and Beth, and Jolene's rifle now coated with mud and possibly out of commission for the time being, and fearing that she might accidently shoot Jolene if she fired her weapon at the undead, Beth felt the best thing to do at that moment was to scream and try to draw the monsters away from her friend.
A loud high-pitched piercing sound reverberated through the man-made underground infrastructure as Beth shrieked at the attacking horde trying to draw their attention away from Jolene.
Her first scream went almost entirely unnoticed by the marauding savages as their insatiable appetite for a fresh human brain deafened them to her vehement call.
The second harsh caterwaul made by Beth had a total different result, in more than just one way.
Upon hearing the howls of Beth's supplementary diversionary tactic, all but one of the unfed corpses turned toward her and began to lumber in h
er direction, their new-found swiftness and agility was hindered only by the lack of friction on the slick maggot coated-mud, the clinging clumps of said mud attached to their feet, and of course their unnatural ineptitude.
A shot rang out and echoed through the concrete passages as Jolene fired her weapon point-blank into the head of the lone zombie that had chosen her for lunch.
Her bullet ripped through the right jawbone of the aggressor and lodged somewhere just to the left of its brain stem, knocking the walking corpse slightly sideways.
Jolene's off set projectile managed to slow the starving pagan beast down some, but failed to stop its attack.
As the wounded zombie shook off the effects of Jolene's misplaced headshot, along with several moist maggots from its lathery lips, it regained its momentary loss of equilibrium and continued its assault on the tasty female.
Jolene raised her rifle up and stuck the muzzle of the weapon on the forehead of the charging cannibal, and pushed against its head as hard as she could with her gun, holding the monster at bay and at the same time, she pulled the trigger.
Click was the only sound that emanated from her rifle as the mechanism was fouled with mud and had failed to go into battery after the first shot, leaving the novice zombie hunter defenseless and struggling with her hunger-crazed attacker.
Boom! Boom!
That double tap was the only sound that Jolene heard as the lower spine of the zombie she was fighting with hand to hand exploded in two places, causing her attacker to lean to her left and quickly topple into the mud and slime at her feet.
Another two shots rang out, and the head of the mud-sopped cadaver at Jolene's feet split into several unequal pieces, all of which were now a few yards from its body.
Then the sound of gunfire filled the underground caverns, as zombie after zombie became estranged to chunks of their diseased brains.
Along with the ringing in their ears, the embattled women then heard.
"Are you two girls all right?" I asked, not knowing that the one with her back to me was Beth.
"I'm fine now," Jolene answered with a sigh, while scraping off a tightly packed throng of maggots and a clump of mud from her cheek. "You two got here just in time."
"I had it under control Jolene, stop trying to be so dramatic," Beth assured her, still with her back to Derek and me.
"How about you sweetheart, are you all right? I asked Beth as she turned toward me. "You're lucky we were close enough to hear your screams."
"I'm fine too..., Jack..., is that you?
"Beth?" I answered. "Holy shit in a doggie bag, it is you."
"I hate to break up this little reunion, but if we don't get the hell out of here now, we may never get out of here," Derek asserted.
"He's right, let's go, we can talk about old times later, after we get to someplace safer than this stinking hole," I said, more intent on milking Beth for information on the Sarge's whereabouts than chatting about old times.
Derek led the way back up the sloped crater wall and onto the street as the rest of us followed.
"All that gun play had to have aroused the curiosity of the eater's in the neighborhood," I claimed, climbing out of the sewer.
"Eater's, it's been awhile since I heard them called that," Beth recalled, with a smile on her dirty face.
Our gunshots echoing through the maze of sewers had dispersed the sound of our shots, and by doing so, dispersed the zigzagging population of famished ghouls that were menacing the town above, as they were drawn to the many different sewer openings and bomb craters in the area.
As we walked quickly up the street avoiding the pitfalls created by the myriad of bombs that were previously dropped in the region, and the ever-present undead that had not been as astute to do the same, Beth noticed that we were headed north.
"We don't want to go this way," she said. "There are people looking for us and we don't want them to find us."
"Who's looking for you?" I asked, hoping that she would give me the answer that I was looking for.
"Ron," Beth answered, "That bastard Ron."
"The Sarge?" I asked.
"Yes, that fucking bastard Sarge," Beth declared as she gritted her teeth.
"Are you two talking about the same guy?" Derek interjected. "The Sarge I've been hearing about oozes with the milk of human kindness, he's a credit to the human race, he's a..."
"He's an overbearing asshole-ish control freak with a beer in his hand," Beth interrupted. "And I want to be as far away from him as possible."
"You hear that Jack, your girl here thinks your buddy is a complete ass-wipe," Derek stated, laughing aloud. "Wait until she finds out that he's the reason we're here."
"Thank you Derek, I think she knows now." I said sarcastically.
"You're here looking for the Sarge?" Beth asked frowning. "Why?"
"You know, old war buddies and all," I lied.
"After that asshole drove off and left you and your family in the middle of that huge zombie horde?" Beth reminded. "Come to think of it, where is your family?"
"They didn't make it," I said sadly, as I drove my tomahawk into the frontal lobe of a tall longhaired male zombie dressed in khaki shorts and a shirt to match, as if he were a jungle guide in his past life.
"The horde got'um?" Beth asked, now frowning even more."
"No, we hid in the tank for a few days until we couldn't stand it anymore, and when we thought the coast was clear we climbed out," I answered, not wanting to go into all of the details.
Sensing that I was reluctant to discuss my family's demise, Beth abruptly changed the subject.
"Well do you know that we're going in the direction of the Caucasian's stronghold?" She asked.
"Yes, I heard that you and the Sarge joined his band of merry men," I answered, jerking my tomahawk out of Ramar's skull.
"That's right, we did, that's where I met Jolene," Beth said.
"I'm going to have to sharpen this thing, all this head cracking is dulling the edge," I said, trying to take my mind off my deceased family.
"We both had had enough of that place so we escaped during the night with the help of one of the guards," Beth explained. "But we figure they're looking for us as we speak."
"So are you trying to say that everyone there is a prisoner, held against their will?" Derek asked, looking rather hesitant.
"Not everyone, some are guards, some are whores, some just like it there, like the Sarge," Beth told him. "I would have stayed, but Ron kept beating on me, and that got old pretty damn quick. I tried to find someone to leave with, and I was even going to kill that bastard before I left, but then I found out that hardly anybody is allowed to leave."
"Yeah the Caucasian likes to maintain a firm grip on most of the people there, although he does let some of them go out and search for people that run away," Jolene added.
"So you two ran away and now you think they're looking for you?" I asked. "Which means that the Sarge may be outside the Caucasian's compound right now?"
"I'm sure of it!" Beth answered confidently. "And if I catch him out here I'm going to kill him."
"I'm sorry Beth, but I can't let you do that, I have plans of my own for the Sarge," I warned, watching Derek dispatch an older looking zombie with his meat cleaver. "Watch it; you're flinging maggots all over hell's creation."
"I figured as much, I didn't buy your Army reunion story for a minute," Beth said knowingly.
"Let's get one thing straight," I said smiling, as I flicked a maggot off Jolene's shoulder. "It was a Marine Corps reunion story."
"Army, Marines, whatever, as long as that son-of-a-bitch dies," Beth stated adamantly, also smiling.
"Well, aren't we a happy group," Derek jested, as he split the skull of another creeping cannibal. "So what's our plan, if this Sarge character is out and about, and not at the Caucasian's house there's no need to go there."
"I'm not going back there!" Beth insisted.
"Neither am I'm!" Jolene chimed in.
&
nbsp; "Well I am going there!" I proclaimed. "The Sarge could be anywhere in the Badlands, and I can't search every nook and cranny in fucks creation looking for him. If he likes it so much at the Caucasian's place, sooner or later he'll go back there. And when he does, I'll be waiting for him.
If you girls act as our guides and take us there, when I've finished my business with the Sarge, we'll do our best to get both of you out of the Badlands."
"I really don't want to go back there Jack," Beth whined, grabbing my arm.
"They might kill me if I go back," Jolene insisted. "They'll torture me for sure, if only to force me to tell them who helped us escape."
"What was the guard's name that helped you?" I asked, thinking that it might come in handy later."
"His name was Kenny," Jolene said, as she figuratively spilled her guts. "But don't tell anybody."
"Well let me get this straight, you know, and you just told me, and you just told Derek, and Beth already knew, so at this point I don't believe that it's a top secret crypto piece of intell that we're discussing. However, I have no reason to mention his name to anyone, so yours and his secret is safe with me." I told her, not mentioning that I might use the information against him if I thought that I needed to.
As we walked north in the direction of the Caucasian's fortress, and I tried to convince the women to join us, we came upon a gray haired zombie seated in a wheelchair.
The apocalyptic virus had the ability to change the physiology of the human body, making some things that were impossible when the person was alive, possible when the person contracted the disease and reanimated.
In this particular case, besides waking up from the dead, people that were crippled in life were able to walk in the afterlife. That is if they still had their legs.
However, this wheelchair bound zombie had not taken the initiative to try to stand up and walk, so it had inadvertently sequestered itself in the chair.
Being too stupid to propel the wheeled furniture by hand, the zombie sat in the middle of what was left of the street groping at any live pedestrians as they walked by, and live pedestrians in the Badland of Indiana were few and far between.