by A. R. Wise
"What about the zombies?" asked Beach.
"My friend is going to distract them, but we've got to hurry."
"That mother fucker," said an old man near me. I turned and saw that it was Harrison and that he was dragging a pack filled with gear behind him as he struggled to move across the bridge. The pack was too heavy for him and he strained to carry it.
"I can get that," I said and started to stand up.
"Thanks, beautiful," he said and handed the pack off to me. He had a puppy in his other arm that was sniffing at the air.
That's when the light hit us. It was blinding and I staggered when it shined on me. The sound of the helicopters got louder every second and the spotlights were blazing down on us from them as they approached.
"Get off the bridge!" Stitch screamed out at us before she raised her pistols and started shooting. The light wavered as the helicopter pilot reacted to being shot at. I tried to reach out to Hailey, but was unable to find her in the commotion as people rushed to get off the bridge. Harrison pulled at me until I went with him while the air began to swirl around us as the helicopters got closer. I had to cover my eyes as debris smacked against my skin. Dirt and twigs from the gardens shot into the maelstrom and spun above me as I ducked down behind a raised portion of the roof, providing respite from the searchlights.
"Hailey!" I screamed out for her and thought I saw a wisp of her red hair fluttering near Stitch when the gunfire started.
The helicopters opened fire on them. It started with a brief whir of noise as the gun began to spin, and then the intense blast of gunfire rattled my body. Brick exploded beside me as bullets collided with the wall and everyone began to cry out in terror. I heard several screaming voices stop suddenly as people died.
I fell to my stomach and covered my head as the helicopters demolished the rooftops. Splinters of wood exploded beside me as one of the gardens was shredded. The soil spilled out onto my arm before a large chunk of brick hit me in the back. I squealed in pain and arched up involuntarily. When I looked up, I saw Stitch fall over backward, a fountain of blood spewing from her chest. The force of the bullet knocked her off the bridge and she disappeared over the edge.
Then I looked for Hailey, but she was gone. There was no one on the bridge anymore, and that fact left me dazed. Moments ago, there had been a swell of people trying to cross, but now it was empty, as if they'd been teleported away. I couldn't grasp where they'd gone until an awful realization sunk into me.
Hailey had fallen off.
The gunfire abated, and the spotlight moved to another part of the roof. I heard a thunderous boom and looked toward the entrance where the noise had come from. Annie was there, wielding her massive gun that was set upon the wall with a bipod for support. She aimed at the helicopter and took another shot. The concussion from the shot pushed her entire body back and I marveled at how such a lithe girl could handle a weapon like that.
Her shot was apparently on target. I heard glass shatter near me, and then the light from the helicopter spun away, then back again. I glanced over the edge of the roof in time to see the helicopter crash down on a nearby street in a fiery explosion that shook our building.
I looked to see where Harrison had gone and saw that he was still beside me. He was covered in dirt from the demolished garden and he was holding the puppy inside of his jacket. He stared at me and blinked as blood rolled down his cheek from a wound on the side of his head.
"Are you okay?" I asked, but he didn't answer.
I wanted to help him, but Hailey was my main concern. If she was hurt, I needed to save her. "I have to get Hailey," I said the Harrison, but he had relaxed against the wall and was staring up at the stars now.
I crawled to the edge of the building and gazed down. The dizzying drop gave me vertigo, but I forced myself to look. The street was littered with bodies, but it didn't take me long to find Hailey's. She was still wearing my white jumpsuit and was easy to spot. She was lying among other bodies, all of them deathly still.
Gunfire roared all around me as Annie and Hero tried to protect the people of Vineyard. The helicopters had retreated after Annie brought one down, but they hadn't stopped firing. I watched as Hero forced Annie to go and leave her gun behind. He had to grab her by the waist and pull her away before disappearing into the building. Their exit didn't deter the helicopters though, and they continued their assault on the buildings. Their gunfire blasted through the walls and windows as they tried to force the people down to ground level where the zombies could overrun them.
I didn't care about any of that, though. All I could think about was getting down to Hailey.
I started to move back to the edge to try and see if I could climb down when my foot caught on a loop of rope that was tied to the pack I'd carried for Harrison. It was a long blue and white rope that had knots tied in one-foot gaps along its length. I unclipped it and then searched for a place to tie it.
I tied the rope around a pipe that jutted up from the roof and then made my way to the edge. "I'm coming, Hailey."
My stomach churned as I prepared to drop myself over the side. I laid on my stomach and inched myself back until my legs dangled off the edge where the bridge was attached.
A helicopter flew back over to focus its assault on my building, but it didn't see me and concentrated on the floors below. It continued to fire until the building shifted from the damage and I was afraid the entire structure would collapse.
Finally, I heard the helicopter's gun spinning without any more gunfire, which I assumed meant it was out of bullets. The helicopter lifted and then flew away, leaving me shaken and terrified as I hung halfway off the side of the ravaged structure.
I gripped the rope as I descended further and whimpered as I dangled over the side. I moved a foot at a time, but then I saw what was inside of the building that the helicopter had just torn apart. A shattered window was in front of me, and there was a family inside. Their bodies had been ripped into gory shreds and blood covered the floor. Bullets had burst holes in the wall and the blood leaked out, trickling down the wall beside me.
The sight of the dead family, their bodies demolished, hastened my descent. Before I knew it, my feet touched the ground.
The street was littered with fragments of the building and bridge above. Water from a severed irrigation pipe sprinkled down, and I splashed through the liquid as I made my way to the bodies. A helicopter flew past and its spotlight illuminated the street I was on for a second, revealing that it wasn't just water that splashed at my feet, but a pool of blood.
Hailey was near the center and I had to crawl over other corpses to reach her. "Hailey, honey. Hailey. Hailey. Hailey." I kept saying her name, each succession more desperate as I reached out to her. My fingers trembled, and my eyes welled with tears. I pushed on, my feet pressing against the limps of dead children, mothers, and fathers as I tried to reach the only person I'd ever loved. Each breath came with a gasp as my lungs seized up in agony. I'd never felt such grief, and when my fingers touched her cold skin I exploded in tears.
I screamed her name and slid my hand under her head. My fingers ran through her bloody hair and I brought her lifeless head to my chest as I cried out in devastation. Her arm fell limp at her side as I hoisted her into my lap and kissed her head.
"I love you, Hailey. I love you so much. I'm so sorry." I put my thumb gently on her lip as I looked down at her bloody torso. She'd been shot in the top of the head, the shoulder, the hand, and too many other places to inspect. Her pale skin was awash in crimson that smeared on my jumpsuit as I rocked back and forth and held her head against my chest. "I'm so sorry."
I heard the screech of tires and looked up to see a car drive along the street ahead, passing the intersection that I was beside. There was music blaring from the car and brilliant red flames were shooting out of sticks that were stuck in the windows. It was a bizarre sight, made worse by my tear filled eyes. After the car passed, I heard the thunder of feet coming closer.
The crowd ran blindly after the car, screaming and clawing at the air. Some of them moved at normal speed, while others struggled to walk. The parade continued unabated, desperate to reach the vehicle that taunted them. I ducked down and pressed myself against Hailey's body in an attempt to fool them. If they noticed me, I wasn't certain I would run. I didn't want to leave Hailey, and death seemed like an easy way to end the suffering that rattled me. I'd never felt sorrow like this, and my body ached in ways I didn't know it could.
I heard the car's tires screech again, and then the sound of it crashing into something. The horn on the car blared as the crowd of zombies continued to chase after it. Whoever had been driving would be swarmed in moments, and I dreaded what would happen to the driver.
I heard a series of gunshots coming from the site of the crash and a man violently screaming. His wailing was loud enough to overcome even the sound of the circling helicopters. He must've died horribly.
I slipped my hand into Hailey's and then used my other hand to push her fingers down. Then I curled up against her, amid the pile of other corpses, and closed my eyes.
I heard the zombies shuffling my way.
I kept my eyes closed and waited…
CHAPTER 9 – A Star is Born
BEN WATANABE
I screamed my lungs out.
I stood on top of that fucking car and yelled louder than I thought possible as I waved the flare over my head to attract the horde to me. Some of them were too far away and started to drift, so I screamed even louder until my throat ached and my lungs were out of air.
After driving around town with the music blaring and flares pinned inside the windows of the car, I decided it was finally time to kick some ass. The horde swelled before me, and the quicker ones were nearing the wreckage already. I hadn't meant to crash the car, but the road was slick even though it wasn't raining. I hadn't expected that, and took the last turn too fast. The car skid into a pole, and I was forced to fight sooner than I'd intended.
I climbed off the top of the car carrying two F2000 assault rifles, one in each hand. Assault rifles aren't meant to fire one handed, and the unavoidable kickback would make aiming impossible, but I had an idea. I got on my knees behind the car and planted the back end of the rifles on the bumper as I wrapped my arms around the weapons. It was an awkward position, with the top of the guns pressed into my armpits, but it would allow me to keep the guns somewhat steady as I fired.
"Come get some, you ugly mother fuckers."
I pulled the triggers alternately to prolong my assault and the guns burned at my side as the casings dribbled out of the front ejection system. Zombies exploded in bursts of blood and fell to the ground. I wasn't getting mortal wounds on them, but all that mattered was that I slowed them down. There wasn't a kneecap within fifty feet of me that didn't get blown out as I ravaged the horde with every single one of the thirty rounds per mag.
The horde continued to swell, despite my murder spree, and the guns were blazing hot on my skin. I had more magazines that I'd picked up from the street after leaving Hero, but I didn't think I'd survive long enough to load the guns. I had to retreat or die here, and there was still work to do. I dropped the rifle in my left hand and loaded the one in my right as I ran down the street. The ground was wet and I realized there was wine dripping down from the wrecked buildings above. If only the people at Vineyard had decided to brew grain alcohol instead of wine, then I might've been able to torch the horde. Unfortunately, the wine did little but make the road slick.
I ran down to the next intersection and turned left to try and return to the parking garage. The horde followed, but many of them slipped on the slick road and fell as they scrambled to chase me. I didn't want to fire the gun anymore to avoid attracting more attention that I had to. The flares I'd left at the car would keep the attention of a good portion of the horde, but the ones that saw me running away would chase me as long as they could see me. I looked for a place to hide, but the buildings had been devastated by the helicopters and were crumbling around me. I ducked down the first street that I could instead of one of the buildings.
The street was almost clear of zombies except for two that had taken interest in a pile of bodies that had been shot off the bridge above. I pulled out my combat knife and ran at them, prepared to shut them up permanently to keep them from alerting any of the other zombies that I was here.
I climbed over a pile of debris and bodies to reach the first one. It was already on its knees and appeared to be focused on one of the bodies in the pile. It must've found one that wasn't completely dead and took advantage of the easy meal. The zombie was a woman, fat and bulbous with a thick neck and stringy hair. I stabbed the knife into the top of her head and she collapsed immediately, which I was thankful for. I'd encountered too many zombies in my time that survived the first head wound you inflicted, as if the attack hadn't damaged the essential part of their brains that kept them going. Unfortunately, even though my strike had killed her, there was another zombie to deal with and I couldn't get my knife back out again.
It had been nearly ten years before this week that I'd even seen a Popper, let alone fight one. After the fall of the initial colonies, the virus stopped spreading. Poppers died out once mankind became nomadic, and I'd forgotten some of the details about fighting them. Greys were a nuisance because they lived for so long, but their bodies were tattered and their bones were brittle. It was easy to stab one of them and swiftly pull your blade out. Poppers, on the other hand, were recently deceased, and stabbing them wasn't much different from stabbing a living person. Their muscle tissue was still fibrous and their bones had a habit of sticking on the jagged edge of a combat knife. When I tried to pull my knife back out, it stayed put and all I accomplished was jerking the dead woman's head around.
The second zombie was a man, taller than me but very thin. He had a broken leg that he dragged behind him as he stumbled towards me. I let go of my knife and climbed down from the pile of bodies to face off with the second creature. As I went, I heard sobbing beneath me, but I didn't have time to investigate until after I dealt with the zombie stumbling my way.
I gave him a swift kick to the kneecap that sent the already hobbled zombie toppling to the ground. After that, it was only a matter of stomping his head in. This was another feat that was easier with a Grey, and it took me three strong kicks to cave in this Popper's head cavity.
"Are you okay?" I asked the person inside the pile of corpses. "Where are you?"
"Here." There was a girl in a blood stained jumpsuit under another girl that was similarly dressed. She pushed the body off and sat up, crying and trembling as blood poured from a wound on her neck. She'd been trying to hide under her friend to fend off the zombies, but the creature had been able to sniff her out. "I thought I wanted to die."
She would die within two days at most with a wound like that anyhow. The virus moved quickly when introduced to the blood stream, and it would've been best for her if she closed her eyes and let me put a bullet in her. Unfortunately, I was trying not to make any loud noises that might attract the horde that I'd just evaded. Also, it was easier to take her with me than to try and explain why she would have to stay behind and die. "Come on, I'll get you someplace safe."
I helped her up and told her to be quiet as I went to get my knife. I had to put my boot on the back of the zombie's neck and use both hands to pull the blade free. Splinters of bone and a chunk of brain matter flew out with it, hitting my chest and sticking to my shirt. I flicked the pieces away with the knife and then cleaned the blade off on my pants.
"Let's go this way." I led her to the street that I'd driven down minutes earlier. A portion of the horde was still gathered around the smoking remnants of my car as the flares conti
nued to blaze. I put my finger to my lips to tell the blonde girl to keep quiet as we moved down the sidewalk.
There were still helicopters in the air, but they'd stopped firing and were now scanning the streets for any survivors. Their spotlights searched the way ahead and I pulled the girl into a shattered storefront to hide as the light went past.
The whirling blades of the helicopter caused debris to whip into the air and we ducked behind a counter inside the store to avoid getting hit. That's when the zombies attacked us from behind.
I'd rushed into the store, and the debris cloud forced me to close my eyes before I had a chance to survey my surroundings. Each of the buildings that Vineyard was built upon had been gutted to make it easier to hunt Greys that might've wandered into town. The outer façade was still intact, but the inside was a shell of what it once was, meaning that we were visible to anything that had found its way in here. Unfortunately, a group of Poppers had broken in from the other side, and we were oblivious to them until they were right on top of us. Their footsteps had been hidden by the noise from the helicopters, and the dust cloud prevented us from seeing them until it was too late. It wasn't until after they attacked that I finally heard the clang of the bells tied to mannequins around us. The noise from the helicopters had all but drowned them out.
I felt teeth on my neck as a Popper wrapped its arms around me. The blonde girl beside me screamed out, but the cloud of dust hid her from me. All I could see was a silhouette of bodies piling on top of her as she struggled to fend them off. I hated to see her die this way, but she was dead already because of the virus that was coursing through her veins. I didn't have time to pity her.
The creature that attacked me was massive. In life, he must've been a huge man, and in death he was even stronger. His hunger drove his madness, and he ripped a chunk of my shoulder off as he shook his head like a feral dog ripping the meat off a fresh kill. Pain surged through me and I felt the familiar gush of hot blood soak my shirt as I struggled to turn around. He had me pinned against the counter, but I was able to push him back far enough to turn and face him.