Zombie Bitches From Hell

by Campbell, Zoot

  His hands look steady on either side of his pistol as he crouches around the corner of the next landing; then we hear the first shriek.

  It’s hideous, and all the more so because it’s trapped in this stairwell, rippling off the concrete walls and bouncing off the metal steps. It’s impossible to tell how near or far the zombie is, or if she has friends.

  “Stand your ground,” Dawkins barks, inching toward Fizer as the shrieking intensifies.

  I feel pressure on my forearm and turn to find Molly’s eyes wide with fear. Tim crouches in, looking high and low, his pistol at the ready. I swing my flashlight in Fizer’s direction, we all do, just in time to catch a bitch yanking him straight down to the next landing.

  Dawkins fires into the air, but the bitch shrieks back and begins gorging on Fizer’s arm. She is voracious and violent, yanking out tendons like spaghetti and ignoring the young man’s screams. Another wildly goes for his dick and balls, tearing through his pants like they are tissue paper. I wonder if my dream in the barn was a way of someone telling me something, that the bitches need the testosterone to survive.

  The zombie’s face has a wry smile on it as her teeth chatter and she dips her head into Fizer’s belly and yanks out some inner organ with her broken, yellow teeth. It’s his stomach and food, half-digested and yellowish, spills on the stairs and drips downward.

  Dawkins fires at the zombie, missing her as she ducks to gnaw on Fizer’s spine. One more shot lands in Fizer’s thigh by mistake, but the boy barely moves. His face is ashen and pale, eyes vacant, already gone but for the routine of his gasping heartbeat.

  Dawkins fires once more, this time hitting Fizer square in the forehead, splattering his brains across the pitted metal landing. One bitch licks up the brains, giving Dawkins a clear shot as he chambers another shell full of pellet and blows her head off with a straight, clean shot from less than five feet away.

  The shrieking continues, louder now as the zombies smell blood. We retreat, scrambling up the stairs until the hollow sound of Ed’s laughter fills the nearest stairwell and bullets from his security guards’ guns ricochet off the stairwell. Tim and Dawkins find an open door just below them on the 19th Floor and shove through.

  Molly and I follow, joined quickly by the two remaining rookies, out of breath and bare arms slick with sweat as they jostle against us to find room. We all hoist our backs against the door, keeping it shut as the horde of ravenous bitches bang against it. Their nails are sharp and scrape loudly on the other side, sending nasty vibrations right through the hollow steel door.

  They shove and we buckle, but don’t bend. Suddenly shots ring out, the shrieks intensify and the zombies clatter and crawl up the stairwell just outside. We can hear Ed and his crew shouting, shooting in a flurry of bullets that carom everywhere, even against the outside of our door, more screaming, and then the unmistakable sound of teeth on flesh and bone as the bitches find the 20th Floor vulnerable and full of live flesh.

  The screaming stops as the feasting begins.

  “Now,” hisses Dawkins, looking to Tim and me for approval. “While they’re occupied with your friends from upstairs.”

  I shake my head, then nod reluctantly as we lean away from the door, yank it open and leap into the stairwell, tumbling down two steps at a time and risking life and limb as we turn on every landing to see if the horde is following us.

  They are not.

  We fly from the 17th floor to the 16th, the 15th, zoom past the 12th, straight past the 10th, catch our breath on the 8th Floor, no bitches and we are nearly to the 6th floor before the shrieking cries begin once again.

  The raspy screams are one thing, the claws are another; they slither and scrape against every stair, scurrying across each landing, long and hard as steel and sharp as meat hooks, scuttling like giant crabs lurching forward inexorably, hungrily.

  The 5th and 4th floor are a blur, the thundering of a dozen zombie feet echoing high above. Molly stays close, Tim angling for the rear with Molly’s machete now, held high in one hand, the other clutching the railing as we hurtle toward the ground floor. Dawkins reaches it first, scrambling for the basement level and the fuel tank that hopefully awaits.

  The basement is vast and ruled by great, giant condensers covered in shimmering metal foil. They stand six to a row, and each one is a perfect undead hiding place.

  We search behind each one, the basement door barricaded by two huge computer clusters that take all of us to slide across the door and wedge tight. It holds against the first barrage of bitch bodies, but even while filling the gas tanks at the giant fuel reservoir in the depths of the basement proper, we can hear the linoleum floor being gouged by the bottoms of the computer towers as they give just an inch; then one inch more.

  As I fill the last gas canister, I finger the nozzle shut, then watch as the door bows in a little more with every assault.

  “Tim,” I urge. “Give me your lighter.”

  “No,” he barks back, even as he begins fumbling for it. “It’s too dangerous.

  “Yeah,” says Molly, aiming her pistol at the clattering door. “As opposed to a half-dozen zombies trying to yank our brains out of our skulls any second now?”

  “She’s got a point,” barks Dawkins as he turns to face the door.

  “You and you,” I say to Dawkins and Tim as I purge the fuel tank, sending a steady stream of liquid propane onto the floor at my feet. “Hide between the condensers on the right. Molly, you and I will take the left.”

  “Let’s pray they break in before we’re knee deep in—”

  The door bursts open and from behind the condensers we can see four, five, six, then seven bitches slither in, all bony joints and rubber limbs, faces white from lack of sunlight and blood flow, eyes milky and blank.

  They would normally sniff us out immediately, but the gas has us all in tears, and their senses – such as they are – in shambles. The splashing of the fuel from the gushing tank draws them in even as we begin inching from the room, first Dawkins, then Tim, then Molly, then myself.

  We sneak back toward the door, routing through the condensers, staying low in the shadows. At the open doorway I gulp in fresh air from the stairwell, turn and flick the lighter; it flicks dry, with only a few sparks. The sound draws the interest of the zombies, who turn, still confused until they see me in the doorway, frantically flicking the lighter.

  Their bare, hideous feet splash in the fuel, sending ripples my way as at last the lighter flickers to life and I drop it to the floor, sending a blue ripple of flame straight toward their clamoring limbs.

  The fuel engulfs them, the fumes singeing them above the waist, the fire burning at their feet. The sound is horrendous as their screams fill the stairwell beneath as we spring upward toward the 5th, 6th and 7th floors, the smell even worse as burning flesh follows us toward the 9th and 10th. My shoulders ache form carrying the tanks up so many flights.

  But it’s more than just smoke wafting from the basement; the zombies, half of them anyway, are still in pursuit, slithering up the steps in slow motion even as the flesh falls from their bodies.

  “God,” Molly spits, out of breath and lagging behind. “Won’t they ever stop?”

  “They’ll stop,” barks Dawkins, panting rapidly as we crouch on the 18th floor. He takes one knee, a pistol from his shoulder holster, aims into the darkness below. “When we pick them off one by one.”

  I crouch next to him, inspired by the idea. He shoos me away, grabbing Tim instead.

  “You get to your ride,” he instructs, “and I’ll keep pretty boy here as insurance.”

  Tim smirks and takes to one knee.

  Molly and I turn hurriedly as I look over my shoulder, watching the flames follow the last remaining zombies up the stairwell as bullets begin to fly from Dawkins’ and Tim’s guns.

  The 19th floor is full of corpses, both human and undead. Bullets riddle the walls while a zombie lies on the floor, cut in half and still crawling toward Ed’s lifeless, gn
awed on legs.

  I silence her with a bullet to the back of the head as we crouch toward the outer stairwell. Molly grabs my arm and yanks me forward, dodging broken, bullet-ridden bodies until we are poised at the bottom of the stairwell on the exterior of the building.

  “You first,” I tell Molly, none too eager for her to be exposed at the bottom of the stairs should any flaming zombies make it through Dawkins and Tim.

  “Can’t we go together?” she asks, even as she grips the bottom rung with trembling hands.

  “I don’t think the laws of physics would allow it,” I quip, inching up closely behind her just in case there’s a bitch somehow waiting for us at the top.

  Her skin is warm as I brush up against her calves while we pass the midway point up the ladder.

  Her voice is trembling as she says, “God, I’m scared.”

  “Almost there,” I urge, the gas canisters weighing me down as I lose a little steam.

  She bridges the distance, moving forward as I struggle to keep up.

  Behind me I hear tearing and look down to see a zombie, fresh and hungry, slicing at my calf. Her face animated and beautiful, her eyes empty and cold. I grip the rung with the crook of my elbow, none too eager to be yanked off the stairs and falling 20 floors only to be devoured by the hungry mob on the ground.

  The zombie screams, dead blonde hair blowing in the wind. Her mouth is open and already full of gore, none of it mine. I imagine Tim and Dawkins already gone, but hear gunfire erupting from the stairwell inside and know that can’t be the case. She must have been hiding on the next floor down.

  Molly screams, and I tell her to “go on” but when I look up, that’s not why she’s screaming. I hear the chewing and feel fresh blood on my throat as a zombie stands, Molly in hand, chewing on her arm until it separates at the shoulder. Her body sails past me, face panicked as she screams the whole way down.

  I kick violently, face drenched in blood, until the zombie’s nose breaks, until the zombie’s fingers break, until it too follows Molly into the gnarling, gathering mob on the street.

  I scream, “no!” but there is nothing I can do. If Molly was any sort of hope for humanity at all, then humanity is well and truly screwed. But there is not time for remorse now, I have to keep going.

  I inch forward, reaching for my gun until I’m just shy of the awaiting bitch, already licking her chops. Three rungs from the roof I aim and silence her with three bullets under her chin; she slumps, mostly headless, to the rooftop floor as I climb over her lifeless body and quickly pile both gas canisters into the balloon.

  I head for the tangled lines and begin carefully working at them. The wind actually helps as it makes the balloon lurch backward and forward, alternately tightening and loosening the lines. I run to the gondola and uncoil a mooring line, grappling it to a drainpipe before completely untethering the gondola.

  I jump in the gondola and fire up the burner. Hadley is curled up in a corner as if asleep. I chide myself for bringing her on this trip and leaving her alone, but she is still alive, and that is what matters. MG, looks up from where his head in on her lap and gives me a woof of recognition.

  Thank God, I think. I stare at the roof door awaiting Tim’s face, looking for movement, pistol aimed should the random bitch come flying at me.

  Dawkins emerges first, turning quickly after a brief smile to reach for Tim’s hand as he helps my partner up onto the roof. They sprint toward me, two bitches hot on their heels.

  I aim for them as Tim reaches the gondola and tosses his full gas tanks on board. Dawkins turns to silence the zombies, riddling them with bullets until his pistol is empty. As he’s reaching for the knife in his boot they reach him instead, my bullets splattering into their bodies but doing little to stop the carnage on the tarmac as they angrily devour Dawkins from the skull down.

  Tim shakes his head, regret pooling beneath his pale blue eyes, and wedges himself next to me, unhooking the mooring rope. The zombies stand, Dawkins’ gore hanging from their lips as they advance on the balloon.

  I jam the burner to full and the balloon lurches up as if a giant hand has grabbed it and us. The bitches leap for the gondola. One is hanging on and using her talon-like nails to easily climb the basket, the tips of her claws penetrating the weave. The balloon rises at a furious pace. Tim turns his rifle around and swings the butt of it like it’s a baseball bat just as the bitch’s head clears the rim of the gondola. She looks at me and rasps, sounds like she says, “waiting for you,” though I’m sure it’s just gurgled nonsense, then Tim bashes her skull and she falls almost in slow motion as we watch downward, her flailing doll-like body hitting the ledge of a skyscraper and dropping into the dark void between buildings.

  CHAPTER 20

  “I’m going to try the radio,” said Tim.

  “I don’t think you should. It’s a long shot that anyone is going to be listening and it may be one of those jerk-off military groups. They see this rig we’re in and they’ll take it. Maybe kill us, make us slaves. Who knows? It’s not worth it, Tim, not worth it,” I said.

  Tim was in no mood for my same old, same old. Couldn’t blame him. Maybe he was finally believing what I’d been thinking since Denver: it’s all a dead end. Why drag it out? Is life so important that we should hold on even if it’s a living torture?

  “Fuck it all,” I said. “Use it. I don’t give a shit any more than you do.”

  “You’re lying,” he said. “But maybe it’s a gamble we can’t not take. Nothing to lose…nothing to lose.”

  He pressed the transmit button and said, “Mayday, Mayday,” just like in the movies. I looked over the gondola side; Hadley was standing next to me. She held my hand. Maybe I was supposed to care for her. Maybe she was my responsibility now and I couldn’t decide just for me or let Tim decide just for him. But what was her future? If we landed even in a safe haven—something we didn’t even know existed—she could still turn. Maybe Jen had a vaccine. Maybe it was bullshit and she only thought she had one.

  “Mayday, Mayday.”

  “Mayday. Respond.” A voice leaped from the speaker, full of static and so loud we all jumped.

  “Mayday, respond,” it repeated. “This is Berkshire Halo. Can you read me?”

  “Fuck yes, we can read you. Berkshire Halo, what’s your 1020?”

  “We’re at Crater Forge, fifty miles due west of Boston. In the Berkshire Armory. Where are you at?”

  “Just crossing the New York-Massachusetts border.”

  “You’re crazy. That area is loaded with those things. They’re controlling every road and pass. Now where the fuck are you?”

  “Seriously, that’s where we are. We’re in a hot air balloon out of Denver.”

  The radio went silent.

  “Hello? Hello? Mayday?” said Tim holding the mic to his mouth like he was kissing it.

  “Shit, man, we thought that was a wacky rumor.”

  “What was?”

  “That some dudes in a balloon were crossing from Denver. Had reports on and off about sightings but thought it was a gaff.”

  “Gaff?”

  “Yeah, bullshit. But I guess not. You’re the real thing. Can you target us on a GPS?”

  “Give me your address.”

  He did. I logged it into the GPS and found that we were about 75 miles due west of the Armory, whatever that was.

  “We’re about three hours away from you. Any landing spots?”

  “There’s a helicopter pad in an open field just north of the Armory. Can’t miss it. How many are traveling with you?”

  Tim looked at me, curious about the question. Granny used to say, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” It just dawned on Tim that we were letting a bunch of dudes know where we were, who we were and that we were just two jerk-offs, a dog and a fucking kid in one of the most valuable things left on planet Earth.

  “Respond please. How many are with you?”

  Tim turned the radio off.

  T
he moon was hidden that night and a crummy, drizzle fell. I could make out lightning behind us but it was so far away that the sound of thunder never made it to us; that one-one thousand, two-one thousand horse crap wasn’t necessary. Glad of it, too. I didn’t know how the balloon would take to lightning or it to the balloon and we had made it too far for me to not care.

  “Uncle Kent?” asked Hadley. “I’m getting wet.”

  “Curl up over there. I’ll cover you,” I said. This uncle thing was giving me a peculiar slant on things. Tim just ignores it.

  “Think we’ll make it to the Cape by morning?” I asked Tim.

  “No reason not to. A light tail wind and cover of darkness. Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said as the greenish light from the GPS lit up his face like a Halloween prank.

  I cover Hadley up and say “Good night, sleep tight.” I’m thinking how crazy this is but I could not leave her behind. No way.

  We’re sailing at a thousand feet or so. I can see the outlines of the Berkshire mountains like black clouds beneath us, thick forests covering the ground in every direction. I get lost in a daydream about The Last of the Mohicans—never read the book, but remember the movie real well—especially, I’m thinking about the part where Daniel Day whoever says to his little colonial hottie, “Stay alive. I will find you. No matter what.” Or some such BS as that. But, you know, it’s the way I feel about Jen. “Stay alive,” I want to tell her. “No matter what. I will…”

  The balloon lights up like midday. I think lightning has hit the goddamned thing. I’m blinded because the glare hits me full in the face. I jump back just as Tim says, “What the fuck?”

  It’s a search light. A voice blurts out of a bullhorn, “Land, good buddy, or I’ll blast you out of the sky.” It’s the same voice that was on the radio. Tim reaches for the burn and sets it full blast. As he does this, a shot like a cannon explosion echoes through the hills. It could wake the dead, if they weren’t already all up and at it.

  “Do that again, boy, and the next shot will be right through you. Now land!”