“You’re going to have to be more specific,” the man replied as Metzger thumbed the hammer, readying the gun for immediate use with a hair trigger.
Perhaps because of the low lighting, the man took a few seconds to study Metzger’s features without daring step forward. A brief flicker of realization showed in his eyes, as though he suspected what troubled souls Metzger entered the school to free.
“The older couple,” the man finally said, maintaining a neutral expression. “Taking them was a mistake.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they were nothing but a giant pain in the ass until we put them out of their misery,” the prisoner replied, taking a step forward as though daring Metzger to shoot him.
In one swift motion, Metzger pulled the firearm from his holster as the man began charging him, remembering videos about how people could avoid being fatally shot if they had twenty-one steps when charging police officers. Making certain he didn’t miss, Metzger aimed at the man’s chest, pulling the trigger.
Falling as though his feet had been swept from under him when the bullet impacted his torso, the man hit the ground with a thud, writhing in pain from the bullet wound to the right of his heart. Both men knew exactly why they were standing in the octagon prison, and both possessed the mindset that only one was going to leave the structure still breathing.
Sputtering blood as his breaths came in heaves, the man rolled slightly from one side to the other, knowing he wasn’t going to recover. He seemed to sense the man holding the .357 wasn’t going to let him leave the octagon alive, even if Metzger himself wasn’t entirely convinced of his endgame.
“You’ll be with them soon enough,” the man said defiantly between labored breaths. “They were pussies, and so are you.”
Without another word, Metzger pulled back the hammer one more time, aimed the .357 at the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger, ending their brief skirmish. He wasn’t anxious to take a human life, but the man was mortally wounded, and needed head trauma to ensure he didn’t turn and harm someone later.
“Two birds, one stone,” Metzger muttered, holstering the firearm.
Minimal blood spurted from the wound, and even as the man lay perfectly still, unable to return as a zombie and seek human flesh, Metzger didn’t feel much relief from his anguish. He received what he considered justification, if not provocation, from the dead Warden, but his task still felt incomplete.
“Now you understand,” Molly’s voice said from behind him, not judging his actions, but sounding somewhat relieved that he finally came to terms with truth the rest of the group realized weeks ago.
He slowly turned to her, surprised to see empathy from her for the first time that day.
“I suppose I do.”
Eleven
Metzger found himself transported back in time as he stood in the classroom where his fourth graders met daily at Blue Ash Elementary School. The community of Blue Ash rested about fifteen miles northeast of Cincinnati, and the last published census of living townsfolk stated the community contained just over twelve-thousand residents.
Despite a major factory fire along the outskirts of Cincinnati that morning, the kids all made it into school the last week of August. Everything began normally as Metzger transitioned from reading to math by the time music class came around. After ushering the kids down the hall to the music room, Metzger decided to eat an early lunch in the teachers’ lounge. When he stepped inside with a brown bag lunch that consisted of potato chips and a turkey sandwich on rye, he found half a dozen teachers glued to the television.
“What’s going on?” he asked, sensing some uneasiness throughout the room.
“The whole country is going crazy,” Tami Hollinsworth answered without looking from the television, which showed a large building on fire.
“Is that the factory fire?”
“No. It’s somewhere in Chicago. There are fires in almost every state.”
Metzger watched the television, unwrapping his sandwich without looking while aerial footage covered numerous buildings from every major city that might as well have been constructed by the same company.
“They all look the same,” Metzger noted, discovering that all of the buildings possessed the characteristics of factories, employing hundreds or thousands, and all caught fire before noon.
“It’s terrorism,” Ted Kirkpatrick said with assurance. “We let all of those towel heads into our country and they bring their Jihad ways with them.”
Metzger remembered 9/11, even though it occurred during his teenage years, and these events felt reminiscent of that day. All of them sat transfixed, watching the footage shot across the country play out without definitive answers. Masked hoodlums didn’t claim responsibility, no one reported suicide bombers entering the factories, and for some reason the employees weren’t being interviewed on the news.
Feeling on edge when the principal announced early departure for students and staff, and even while he helped monitor the bus loading, Metzger couldn’t shake the suspicion that the events were something history books would record. He stopped for a sub on the way home, knowing he wasn’t going to leave the house again that day. He spent the remainder of the afternoon fixated to the television in the basement of the nine-hundred square foot home he rented.
His plans of marriage, owning a home outside of any city, and having some kids of his own had fallen apart during the last school year when his girlfriend of three years opted out of their relationship.
To think he went through the trouble of obtaining an Ohio teaching license, moved two states away, and committed to her home state still ate away at him. She hadn’t given a reason for the breakup at first, simply saying she wanted a break, but through the grapevine Metzger heard rumors that she wasn’t faithful to him. He reached a point that he didn’t know what to believe, but his love for the job and his school kept him in Ohio another year to see if his relationship with Deidre could be resolved.
After placing the sub in the refrigerator, Metzger spent the afternoon and evening in the finished basement watching the news. He switched between local and national coverage, unable to fathom what caused such havoc across the nation. Reports eventually surfaced that explosions caused the factory fires, and that employees near the blast areas complained of an unexplained illness. Many of them were taken to area hospitals for examination while the government scurried to find answers.
Metzger ended up falling asleep in his recliner, never making it upstairs to eat or properly get into bed. When he awoke at the break of dawn the news showed a much bleaker version of the world if that even seemed possible. Tuned in to one of the local Cincinnati affiliates, Metzger watched as a reporter and her cameraman attempted to film what looked like chaos in the streets of the city. Most people were running, and in some cases were savagely attacked by slower-moving people who walked stiffly and groped after anything that went past them.
He watched in stunned silence for several minutes, wondering if the events before him were some kind of elaborate hoax, or perhaps some reality show that went too far for ratings. It wasn’t until he heard a man’s scream on the television, followed by the camera dropping to the ground, that he began to believe. From a sideways perspective the reporter ran down the street in her high heels, making it less than twenty steps before she was tackled by one of the sluggish attackers and bitten repeatedly before a few more slow assailants dropped to their knees to join in the biting frenzy.
Her screams haunted Metzger immediately, so he decided to separate himself from the unraveling world on television by walking upstairs.
Shaking his head as he reached the main level of the house, he felt some comfort just seeing the everyday items in his life undisturbed. He strolled to the front door, taking a look outside and seeing the start of a sunny day as he heard the central air kick on to cool the house. Somewhere between wanting more sleep and fully awake, Metzger decided to brew some coffee to ensure he stayed conscious. A minute later
, the coffee maker gurgled and began its daily job as he walked to the front door for a second peek, finding a virtually cloudless sky that allowed for immediate daylight just after dawn.
Located in a fairly isolated area, chosen with intent when he shopped for housing, the dwelling offered peace and quiet for Metzger and many of his senior citizen neighbors. Rain hadn’t fallen in over a week, leaving the area muggy and hot as schools started classes and parents and students alike adapted. At first glance his street appeared completely unaffected by the crazy events overtaking the rest of the world, and Metzger felt thankful to be away from those dense, urban settings.
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he decided it might be a good day to call in sick if school hadn’t already been canceled. He dialed the number reserved for teachers and staff, listening to it ring before it went to a generic voicemail. Someone always manned the phone line a few hours prior to the school’s daily opening, so he grunted and looked at the time.
6:14 a.m.
“Shit,” he muttered, realizing he might be cutting it close if he didn’t live just minutes from the school.
He called a second time, receiving the voicemail again, perplexing him. Surely the strange uprising in the cities hadn’t affected everyday life in every other community, he thought. Dressed in only his sweatpants and a T-shirt from the previous evening, Metzger opened the front door and stepped onto the landing to look for his newspaper. Looking down, he saw nothing along the sidewalk, and no evidence on either side of him that the neighbors received their papers.
Fully prepared to walk down the street to survey the neighborhood, his home phone rang inside, distracting him. Without closing the door he jogged inside to swipe the phone off its charger, expecting an automated message from the school announcing cancelation, or one of his fellow teachers calling to pass along some news. He hit the talk button, surprised to hear the voice on the other end of the phone before he uttered a word.
“Dan, is everything crazy there too?” Connie Metzger asked him from the Buffalo suburb where his parents resided.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
“There was an explosion in Buffalo yesterday and everything fell apart after that.”
“What do you mean?”
“People are running through the streets attacking each other like they’ve all gone crazy.”
Metzger thought back to the news report, realizing the chaos wasn’t just in Cincinnati. It spread all over the country, just like the factory fires, meaning the terror continued to wash across the nation like a tsunami.
“Mom, stay indoors, whatever you do.”
“A few of them have come up to the door, but we aren’t letting anyone inside. Your father went and loaded his shotgun just in case they broke down the door.”
“How many of these people are there, Mom?”
“Oh, dozens. They’re everywhere.”
Metzger felt a growing panic, wondering if his parents were capable of holding off a large number of invaders, knowing he wasn’t nearly close enough to assist them.
“Daniel, your brother is calling. Let me call you back in a little while.”
“Mom, be careful, and don’t let anyone inside.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She sounded almost a little too nonchalant to provide Metzger with any comfort, but as he set down the phone he heard a footstep at the threshold of his front door, providing him with his own major problem.
Whirling as quickly as his body allowed, Metzger came face-to-face with his first gnashing assailant in the form of a burly highway worker, complete with dirty blue jeans and an orange vest. Finding little time to focus on the details, Metzger dodged snapping teeth, noticing the man already had blood across his face and throat. The attacker lunged forward, forcing the school teacher to parry by stepping aside and letting him fall into the backside of the kitchen counter.
Not the least bit fazed by the tumble, the man growled and immediately regained his footing, charging towards Metzger with the balance of an intoxicated bar patron. Uncertain of exactly what he was dealing with, Metzger backed up to the door and headed outside with the grating teeth and the strangely yellowed eyes of the man tracking his every move. The impaired highway employee seemed to have his head slightly tilted to the right side at all times, indicating either an injury or some kind of physical defect.
“Stop, buddy,” Metzger said, still backpedaling down the stairs and into the front yard, hoping to put distance enough between him and the man to rush inside to safety.
His plan quickly came unhinged, however, when an elderly woman wearing a light blue nightgown with floral prints came stumbling across the grass, baring teeth as she headed directly for him with bad intentions.
“Oh, fuck,” Metzger said to himself because no one within his vicinity could understand his words.
Heading away from the woman, and around the man, he dashed into the house and shut the door behind him, turning both the doorknob and the deadbolt locks. His heart thumped within his chest at the thought of being chomped at and ripped apart by mindless freaks. He ran into his bedroom, searching under the bed for the .357 Magnum his father bought him for high school graduation to keep for protection. Of course gun laws in New York State went crazy after terrorism changed the face of New York City and people weren’t allowed to carry, much less transport, firearms throughout the state.
Ohio proved a bit more practical with their gun laws, but Metzger never joined the unofficial conceal and carry club.
Secured in a small plastic case he bought to keep the gun and its six-inch barrel from collecting dirt and particles, the gun remained beneath his bed. He reached in, sliding the entire case to him before grabbing a small shoebox behind it containing at least a few hundred rounds of ammunition. He planned to shoot target practice occasionally at one of the indoor ranges, not to fire at anything alive short of a home invasion.
As he pulled the gun from its case and a box of ammunition from the shoebox, Metzger ran downstairs to get the latest on the news. He switched channels, finding that some cities were slower than others to catch on to the happenings, and in a few cities the strange assailants were virtually taking over the streets because of their sheer numbers. A few videos showed police forced to fire at the attackers, unable to bring them down, or even slow them, with slugs to the limbs or chest. Reporters who spoke to one police official said the man wished not to be identified, but stated that only trauma to the head was capable of subduing the staggering aggressors permanently. The reporter added that gunshots, baseball bats, even larger sharp objects would do the trick.
“This is fucked up,” Metzger muttered, returning upstairs to look out his front door where he noticed a third unwelcome visitor had joined the other two in clawing at his door.
He stood there somewhat stunned a few minutes until his phone rang, bringing him back to the present. Thinking his mother might be calling him back, he dashed over to answer it, finding the number somewhat foreign to him.
“Hello?” he answered, deciding the risk of a telemarketer calling was the least of his worries at the moment.
“Dan, it’s Bryce. Don’t talk, just listen.”
“Okay,” Metzger said quickly, sensing urgency in his older brother’s voice.
Deployed halfway across the world, Metzger recalled, his brother wasn’t due back to the States for at least another month.
“They’re keeping us out to sea while they sort out what’s going on everywhere. This thing is worldwide, little brother. You’ve got to get to Mom and Dad and protect them.”
“But I have a job and responsibilities, Bryce.”
“You don’t get it. The world as we know it is over, Dan. These things are everywhere, and this is literally the apocalypse. If one of those things attacks you, shoot it in the fucking head. Look, I’ve got to go. Things are pretty tense on the ship because word has already gotten out.”
Metzger started to say som
ething but the call ended with a lack of any voices or background noise at all. Still holding the phone, he looked to the front door, which contained just enough frosted glass in the center of its solid wood frame to let him see daylight being blocked by a number of trespassers. He virtually dragged himself down to the basement, unable to process the unraveling world around him. Listening to the news, he loaded the .357 and stuffed several additional rounds into his right pocket.
Updates indicated that anyone who was bitten and died seemed to return to life in some rudimentary sense. Words like ‘undead’ and ‘zombie’ were tossed around, but Metzger wondered how much time the living possessed before everyone stumbled around the streets looking for anything living to prey upon.
Beginning to formulate a plan of escape, he thought about his neighbors, realizing he didn’t really know them personally. He didn’t want to be selfish, but getting to his parents took precedence, and if he got killed trying to save the neighborhood he didn’t do them a lick of good. He drove a black Chevy Colorado to work most days, and it sat in the short driveway providing amble opportunity for him to escape if he could reach it.
He trusted Bryce implicitly, so he decided to pack light, bringing only what clothing and supplies he needed. Snatching his cell phone, some food and a can opener, he began tossing smaller items into a backpack he had taken from the lost and found at school after months of no one claiming it. He originally thought it might be handy for packing extra items for weekend motorcycle rides, but currently he wanted to drive the truck to bring more items, and for security.
Metzger triple-checked that he’d packed everything necessary for a trip to Tonawanda, trying to envision the number of stationary vehicles on the highways and interstates. Cities were a complete mess, but he wondered if people were fleeing, jamming the roads, or if many of them stayed in shelter, hoping for the best. Metzger didn’t expect the police and military to come save everyone, because they were battling just to survive the swarm of newly undead attackers on the streets. They couldn’t be expected to outlast an army that continued to grow with every fresh death.
The Undead Chronicles_Book 1_Home and Back Again Page 15