Detroit Reanimated

by Michael Halliday

  Cameron searched the body and located some ammunition, a flashlight, and a set of keys.

  They continued their trek to the gates of the armory when they ran into a group of twelve more reanimated guardsmen before them. They meandered about, as if waiting for something to grab their attention.

  “Shit, thin them out. Be smart!” Cameron instructed.

  The four had separated to lead the guardsmen apart. Matthew pulled away the most as five followed him. The separation had cut Matt off from the others. He took the sheath off the ‘honor blade’ while he marched up to one of them. A corporal tried to swipe an arm at the boy, but he wasn’t even close.

  Matt’s turn. He swung at the guardsman and struck him across the stomach. The corporal’s intestines spilled to the ground. Matt shoved the blade under the corporal’s chin. The impact sliced open an artery. Smelly dark blood sprayed down onto Matt. The stench from the blood was more than Matt could handle and he vomited. The other reanimated guardsmen were too close for comfort. He panicked after the smell took away his focus. He didn’t realize the smell also shielded him from the undead. Matt ran in fear.

  Daniel followed Matt after he took down the two that had gone after him. One with the bow – the arrow had penetrated deep into an eye – the other fell to his blade when Daniel sliced deep into the right side of its skull. He placed another arrow on the nock. He attached his released calmly, and pulled the trigger.

  The arrow drove into the back of the skull of one of Matthew pursuers. The reanimated sergeant fell to the ground like a ragdoll. Daniel collected the arrows by ripping them violently from his targets.

  He slung the bow onto his back and ran after Matt with the death dealer in his hand. He struck the back of another trooper’s head and it fell to the ground. Two left.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Daniel said as he froze in his tracks. Matt had run into another group of civilian biters. Matt squeaked as he dove under a fence and rolled. The twelve-year-old ran toward an abandoned two story house that appeared extremely ancient. For the first time since this all began had Matthew been truly frightened of death. The bigger group of biters followed Matthew to the house.

  Daniel ran hard with all of his strength and tackled one of the guardsmen to the ground. Repeatedly, he hammered the guardsman’s head with the death dealer, which splattered blood all over him. He growled at the remaining guardsman, who turned to face Daniel with a lunge. Daniel dodged out of the way, cutting one of the guardsman’s hands off at the wrist. He then slashed the guardsman at its neck, which took the lieutenant’s head completely off. Running as fast as he could, Daniel sped toward the house.

  “Matt! Matt! Fuck! Answer me dammit!” Daniel yelled at Matt.

  Six of the undead followed Matt into the ancient house. Two were men, the rest women. One of the men wore only dirt and blood-stained briefs. The house was a complete wreck, with garbage and debris spread all over the floors.

  With each step, the floorboards screamed that they would collapse at any time and betray Matt. He backed away slowly from the six biters when it appeared they had trouble locating him.

  The weight took two of the biters through the floor. Daniel got to the entrance and drove the death dealer deep into the back of a female’s head. She went limp and fell to the ground. Daniel ripped the blade from the back of her head, which splattered even more blood on him and the doorway. He was forced to find another way in because of the massive hole caused by the biters falling through.

  Matt rounded a corner and ran up a flight of stairs. The wood snapped and groaned under his feet. He disappeared into an empty bedroom where the floorboards were even worse than they were downstairs. The stairway posed as an obstacle for the remaining biters.

  “Matt! Where are you, man?” Daniel yelled for his friend.

  “Upstairs! They’re coming!” Matt snapped.

  He didn’t want to give away his location until he came up with a plan, but the undead hadn’t found him yet. Matt hammered the weak floorboards with the death dealer. He stomped at them to make them even weaker. He then went to the other end of the room to wait for the three remaining biters to appear.

  The one in extremely dirty skivvies appeared first. He was slouched over, with dead gray skin, boney face and sunken eye sockets. He had those jaundiced yellow eyes. His throat was completely ripped out with bits of flesh hanging and he was speckled with minor wounds across his wiry body. The tips of his fingers were nothing more than exposed bone. He groaned as he searched the room for what caused the sounds.

  “Come on, you want to eat? I’m right here,” Matt snarled at the undead man.

  The boards did betray Matt. they didn’t break under the man’s weight, and the grayish skinned biter was inches away from him. The man was joined by the other two that had followed.

  “Not today!” Matt growled before he stabbed the man underneath his chin. He pushed the man toward the other two.

  All three biters fell through and Matt went with them. A nail tore into Matt’s right hip, which saved his life, as it slowed his momentum during the fall. Two biters crashed all the way through to the basement. A splintered floorboard ripped through the stomach and out the opposite side of one of the undead women.

  Matt landed on a hard oak table, and the landing caused a cloud of dust to fly. The table groaned and threatened to fall to the basement with Matt. He rolled toward the wall and landed on the floor.

  The ‘death dealer’ landed into the back of the nearly naked undead man, which severed his spinal cord in two. Daniel chopped the man’s head clean off. He reached for Matt and helped him up. Matt grabbed the honor blade as he stood. Blood soaked into his torn shorts and boxers. Daniel cleared out a window filled with shards of jagged glass and helped Matt through. They both checked the area around them to find it was clear.

  “Let me see it,” Daniel told Matt. Matt lowered the right side of his shorts and boxers to reveal a moderately deep wound nearly eight inches long. “We have to get you back to Cameron. That has to be disinfected and bandaged. You might even need some stitches.”

  “I’ve had wounds like it before. It’s not even bleeding that bad.”

  “Can you move ok?” Daniel asked.

  “I should be dead,” Matt replied. “If that floor hadn’t given way when it did, I would be dead.”

  “You’re alive, and you have a war wound to show for it,” Daniel said. “If you need help, I can carry you for a ways.”

  “I’ll try on my own first,” Matt said. He pulled his shorts back up, took off his shirt and stuffed it against the wound.

  “Ok, it should be this way to get back to Cameron. Hopefully he took care of his biters.”

  Cameron picked up Matt’s sheath. His heart pounded from the fear that he lost the boys.

  “Stay here, Steve. I’m going to look for them,” Cameron said. “I’m not about to lose anyone else with this damn nightmare, especially those boys.”

  Cameron began following a trail of footprints until he saw two heads bobbing over a hill toward him. He ran over to them and saw Matt was struggling to walk.

  “Where have you been?” Cameron asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “I have a big gash on my hip,” Matt replied. “But I wasn’t bit.”

  “We’re going back,” Cameron told them. “We’ll come back once we get you taken care of.”

  “We took out nine and three are trapped in an old house,” Matt said.

  “Well done, both of you. Less that we have to worry about later,” Cameron told the boys. “Do you want me to carry you?”

  “Please, we’ll take all night to get back there,” Matt said. “It hurts.”

  They got back to L&S Industries quickly. Matt stripped to have the wound cleaned. He called the others in when he was ready. Sandra cleaned and disinfected the wound with the little supplies she had. With Steve’s minor medical training, he determined that the wound was going to require stitches. They searched the building for something to act as thread whe
n Sandra produced an extensive first aid kit, which included some stitching thread and needles from the management office. Also in the office was someone’s idea of a relaxing break, a full bottle of whiskey.

  “You've barely said a word, Matthew,” Sandra said as she sterilized a needle with a lighter. “Cam, could you put on some gloves and hold the end of this thread?”

  Cameron did as he was asked and Sandra robbed the thread with some of the whiskey.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “About?” Sandra asked. "Ok, I think we're ready. Matt, I need you to lie back and face that wall. I have to do this with better light."

  Matt scooted back and turned to his left side.

  "This may sting, but I’ll do it as gently as I can," Sandra said.

  She started the stitching and Matt released a pained hissing sound.

  "That wasn’t bad,” Matt said bravely. “I was thinking of how weird the biters acted.”

  "What do you mean by weird?" Steve asked, clearly interested.

  “They acted like they couldn’t find me until I said something or started to hammer the floor.”

  “Couldn’t find you?” Steve asked. He gently pinched the gash together for Sandra.

  “Yeah, after... ouch... the group that was outside of the house.”

  “Almost done, you are doing really well,” Sandra complimented him.

  “You smell terrible, maybe that could be it,” Steve suggested. He dabbed the whiskey-covered cloth on the wound.

  “He smells as if he’s rotting,” Cameron said.

  “Do I really stink?” Matt asked.

  “Yes,” Steve, Sandra and Cameron all said simultaneously.

  “That’s it. All done, and you did a marvelous job,” Sandra said as she put some triple antibiotic on the stitched up wound. She then placed on a large bandage. She smiled and patted his face gently. “There’s a clean set of clothes on the table by Cameron.”

  Sandra left the room to give Matt privacy. He got help getting off the table and Cameron gave him a set of boxers. Matt went behind the table to put them on, but both men turned away from him to add more privacy.

  “At least you didn’t end up on the wrong side of a fight with a skunk,” Steve joked. “But holy crap, you need to wash that stench off.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” Matt said with a thought. He came out from behind the table. “You can look.”

  “He has me thinking the same thing, Steve,” Cameron said as he looked over Matt’s blood soaked shirt.

  A knock tapped on the door and Cameron looked at Matt. He nodded that it was ok for Cameron to open it. Daniel and Andrew Whitehorse came in to see how Matt was. Andrew carried the ‘honor blade.’ Andrew had cleaned it for him.

  “Thank you, Andrew,” Matt said graciously.

  “Ugh, Daniel smells worse than Matt,” Steve said.

  “It’s still light out, and we might have a few hours left of light to see what we can find,” Steve suggested.

  Matt walked around the room to see if the wound would hinder him. He looked questioningly at Cameron, who just looked back at him. The decision to let Matt go back out created a battle within his mind.

  “Daniel and I will go ahead of you. Matt, this will be an adult decision for you. I want you to consider both sides. I know you want to help, but consider this. What if we ran into trouble and you were forced to run or move in a way that rips open those stitches?”

  “I can make it,” Matt insisted.

  “I want to test something,” Cameron said.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Steve asked with a concerned look.

  “What if they don’t like the smell of dead flesh or fluids?”

  “So you’re thinking allowing these boys to smell like a seven-day-old corpse may protect them?” Steve asked.

  “One way to find out,” Cameron replied.

  “I’m going,” Matt said. “Chances are going to come. I don’t want to hide for the rest of my life. Other than the hip, I did make it out alive, right?”

  “You sure did, with a total of eleven on you,” Daniel nodded.

  "Wonder if there are more in the armory," Matt thought out loud.

  'We're about to find out,' Cameron thought as they left for the second time.

  A short time later, they were back at the armory gates. No more of the undead had reinforced the ones they already killed. Steve and Daniel were the first at the gates. Daniel had an arrow prepared to cover Steve while he unlocked the main gate.

  Daniel found the first prize, a line of Humvees that appeared to have been prepared for assignment somewhere. Cameron hoped the set of keys he had found were for the Humvees.

  “Let’s get these Humvee’s prepared,” Steve told Daniel.

  “Steve, we have some incoming,” Daniel said and pointed to six reanimated guardsmen approaching.

  “Fuck, I was hoping some of them were spared,” Steve said. “Thin and kill, like Cameron showed us.”

  Daniel knelt down for better aim at the lead guardsman. He had little to work with, since the soldier wore a helmet.

  ‘Aim carefully, make it count,’ Cameron thought as he watched Daniel.

  Daniel loosed the arrow, but it bounced off the helmet.

  “Damn, nice attempt,” Steve said.

  “I’m not done yet, they are a good ways for me to take out two,” Daniel said confidently before he nocked another arrow.

  The arrow took down one of the guardsmen by hitting him on the right side of the forehead. He loosed another arrow and attempted the helmet wearing biter again. The arrow met its mark this time, and it sunk into the guardsman’s right eye socket, which dropped it as well.

  Cameron and Matt arrived behind the four remaining undead. Daniel loosed another arrow to take out an Asian Guardsman and it sank into his left ear. Cameron motioned for Daniel to stop firing.

  “Remember what I said, Matt. Get as close to that last biter as you can. When you think you can take it down, do it. If it notices you, come back to me,” Cameron instructed his student.

  Matt followed the instructions to the letter. He got right behind a tall sergeant. Before the sergeant even had a chance, his head fell to the ground. The remaining three biters fell quickly after as Matt went to each of them without being detected.

  Daniel went to retrieve his arrows, and they all met by the line of six Humvees. Cameron got into one and tried the keys. One went in and it started! Cameron divvied the keys so they could each try one.

  “Oh, that’s so fricking bonus,” Matt said. “Am I driving one?”

  “Do you know how to drive?” Steve asked.

  “Guess not,” Matt said with a sigh.

  “Evan will teach you someday,” Cameron told Matt. “In the meantime, you can help me with the buildings. Steve and Daniel, can you see what all these Humvees have? Remove what we don’t need so we have room for what we do.”

  “Got it,” Steve replied with gusto and tossed Cameron the armory keys.

  “Steve!” Cameron yelled suddenly when he was in between the first building and Steve.

  Steve looked back at Cameron questioningly, and then followed what Cameron was looking at. Two helicopters seemed to have also been prepared for assignment, with cases of food and pallets of water.

  “I don’t know how!” Steve said with a shrug.

  “Does anyone in the group?” Cameron asked.

  Steve thought for a moment, but no one came to mind.

  “I don’t think so, damn shame,” Steve said with a grimace. “I’ll check the inventory though, we could use the water. I think those cases are MREs.”

  “Thanks! Let’s go, Matt.”

  The first building contained the kinds of guns they were looking for, such as M-16s, AR-13s and M4s. There was one case with the high-powered sniper rifles. They searched thoroughly in multiple cases for silencers until Matt noticed a sliding drawer built into the case with the high-powered rifles. He slid out the drawer to reveal four silencers.


  “Bonus,” Cameron said with a grin at Matt. “Let’s get these out to the Humvees.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Matt asked, He gestured with a nod at a case.

  “Let’s find out,” Cameron opened the case to find a large number of Glocks. “Nice find.”

  They took the cases out and piled them by the Humvees. The next building they searched had some of the radios they were looking for. Matt also found some night-vision goggles.

  “Very good job, Matt,” Cameron said. “I think that’s all we need.”

  Something metallic fell and clattered to the floor. Cameron and Matt looked simultaneously at the object to see an empty pistol magazine. A wobbly hand came out from behind a stacked pile of weapon cases holding a Glock. A single shot went off that hit a wall.

  “Stay away! Stay the fuck away!” A woman yelled with a shrill voice.

  “Hey! We're not here to hurt you!” Cameron said. He placed his hands up and gestured for Matt to do the same.”

  “Who the hell are you?" she asked ferociously.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Cameron repeated. Steve appeared at the door with his gun drawn. Cameron shook his head at Steve not to interfere. “We’re here to help.”

  “Doesn't look that way to me," she countered.

  “Yes, we can help you,” Steve said. “Come out so we can see you.”

  There was a click and the gun clattered to the floor. Cameron and Matt put their weapons down and went to help her out of hiding. She was dressed in camouflage pants and a forest green tank top. Her hair was in disarray. Her square face was covered in grime.

  “Are you the only one alive?” Matt asked.

  “Get some water, Steve. Are you hungry, miss?” Cameron asked her.

  “You-you’re just a boy,” she said to Matt, then to Cameron, “Yes, I’m hungry. I've been stuck in here for days with nothing but rain water.”

  Matt seemed to be perplexed by this woman. Steve returned with a bottle of water and an MRE. She finished the water first without stopping, and then dug into the food. Cameron, Steve, and Matt gave her time and space to sort things together. Daniel came to see what was going on.