Sorrow

by Brian Wortley

  ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  Sara walked about aimlessly until Val and Moses found her. She looked altogether haggard as if a great weight had been placed upon her. They took her back to Moses’ old house where he lived before moving in with Val. Val had moved her few possessions there before Connor burned down Brady and Sara’s house. Sara tried to sleep but found no rest. Val and Moses checked in on her occasionally to find her body jerking from side to side on the bed.

  “What’s the matter?” Val asked her friend. “Can you not get any sleep?”

  “None,” Sara said sitting up. “I am overwhelmed by this feeling of dread.”

  “Is it the attack?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibly. Although it seems different somehow. I see-” her words trailed off as she slipped away into a world of unending fire. Val held her as her body shook.

  ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  Sometime after four o’clock, the dead came calling upon the living. In the red moonlight the guards perceived a wave approaching them. Like a horde of ants they appeared in the distance enveloping the land. As one they surrounded the encampment. Connor looked at their numbers and fear seized his heart. Thousands of zombies lined the outskirts.

  As the soldiers on the wall shined lights at the approaching terrors, they were confronted with a sobering truth. There were few, if any, first level zombies. The army surrounding them consisted of agile, treacherous thinkers. This battle would not be against mindless rows of zombies just waiting to be mowed down.

  Connor cautioned the men around him. “Do not let them congregate! They are devious planners and should not be permitted to work together. Use grenades and RPGs against them if they assemble by the walls. Be sure and target the king should he appear. Commence firing of the tanks!”

  The deafening roar of the tanks shook the earth. Zombie pieces flew into the air at the points of impact. Round after round softened the first wave as it approached. This brought a smile to Connor’s face. Connor looked over to watch one of his snipers. Connor gave him thumbs up when he chanced to look Connor’s way. As the first wave neared the wall, the entire perimeter erupted into gunfire. On every side of the city, zombies advanced on all fours like dogs. As the zombies approached, the larger mounted guns roared to life shredding many. Few of the first group made it to the wall and those that did were easily picked off as they tried to climb it. The bulk of the army remained out of range sending small waves forward as if to test the defenses.

  Several of the sharpshooters made their way to the tops of buildings, sniping zombies towards the back. As they looked through their scopes, they tried to find leaders but it appeared all were equal. No king had been sighted.

  It was by chance that one of the snipers happened to see a human dressed in black right before he disappeared behind a building. The sniper found Connor on the ground below and shouted down to him.

  “Sir,” the man called down to Connor. “There are humans among the ranks. I saw,” but before the sniper could finish his sentence a bullet tore through his skull and out the other side. He collapsed falling off the roof to the ground below.

  Connor immediately ducked for cover. “Snipers! They have human snipers!”

  Two more soldiers fell to sniper fire before they could reach safety. The next wave came in much harder than the first. Now hundreds perhaps thousands of zombies ran towards the walls, much more than could be mowed down so easily like before. The tanks killed those they could but fire too slowly to defend against such an onslaught. The troops readied their grenades and RPGs waiting for the enemy to be close enough. Those enemies that fell were trampled carelessly under the feet of the advancing horde. Without thought of losses they charged fearlessly. The first of the grenades detonated blowing many into the air. The roar of launching RPGs became a frequent noise. Despite the flying debris and fiery explosions, the army did not even hesitate. Zombies, losing arms and legs to the blasts, simply continued crawling towards the walls relentlessly digging their fingers into the earth propelling them forward. Death alone stopped their march.

  The wave hit the walls like a flood crashing onto sandbags. Using holes in the wall, they began climbing up and over. The men beyond shot them down as their heads appeared over the top. But still many made it over lunging on the soldiers behind the barrier. Connor, frantically ordering the gasoline to be lit, smiled as he saw the flames engulf the perimeter. Without even a noise acknowledging their agony, the zombies continued scaling the wall. Many fell as their limbs gave out or a fiery death finally ended their ascent. A burning heap of zombie corpses began forming at the base of the wall. With inhuman resilience, fiery zombies came leaping over the walls. The men were forced to engage in hand to hand combat with the blazing foes. Desperate panic fueled the soldiers as they jabbed with their knives praying their blades would hit something of importance. Many of the soldiers caught on fire themselves and ran about the camp until the flames consumed them.

  The stench of burning flesh drifted through the camp. Connor ran to some of the helicopter pilots and ordered them to patrol above the camp to help relieve the pressure off the walls. Within minutes multiple choppers were in the air with guns blazing. Normally, Val would have led the charge, but Connor would not allow it. He feared she might try to take Brady and Sara and make a run for it.

  Finally, the tide began to turn. With the extra firepower of the helicopters and the excessive use of grenades the tanks were able to push back the enemy from the walls. Sniping continued and those that didn’t move or find shelter, like the gunners on the stationary turrets, were often the victims.

  During a small break in the fighting, Connor overheard a conversation of two men near him.

  “Look at the sun” said the first. Connor turned to look to find it mid-morning already but it was no brighter than early morning before the sunrise. The sun was half way through the eastern sky, but the sun itself seemed to be giving off little light. A gaping darkness in the right side could almost be seen.

  “The sun is going out,” the other replied. “We’ll all freeze in the dark!”

  With the added light of the sun, Connor saw deeper into the zombie ranks. They went far deeper into the surrounding area than he anticipated. He looked out finding two of the tanks had been ransacked. Streaks of the operator’s blood lined the outer armor. They both had been hit by some type of explosive allowing the nearby zombies entrance into their bellies. Now everywhere Connor looked there seemed certain defeat. The walls to the north now seemed overrun by foes. The helicopters had become somewhat distracted to the south fighting a fleeing group of zombies.

  Finally, overcome by fear, Connor gave the order to have some of the citizens evacuate to new areas.

  Anxious to give his men hope, Connor helped people climb into helicopters. With as many people they could hold, the helicopters took off with instructions to find any place suitable for humanity to continue. It was then that the remainder of the zombie army charged. Like two hands wrapping around a throat, they surrounded the walls completely. Connor pleaded with the other helicopter pilots to take off. Men and women jumped up frantically clutching at what seemed like the only salvation. One of the choppers, weighed down by the load, came crashing down into the earth. Rotor blades dug into the ground as they broke off killing many.

  The walls again were under heavy attack. Connor grabbed an extra gun from a dead soldier and made his way to the perimeter. Connor looked back for a moment just in time to see rockets hitting several of the helicopters. He stood in horror watching as more rockets came roaring overhead from the zombie army. Confused and struck by terror, Connor watched as every helicopter plummeted to the earth in flames.

  Connor’s dread now seized him completely. Everywhere he looked, zombies poured in over the walls. He bolted towards Brady’s cell not sure entirely sure of his intentions. As he ran, he noticed a large group of zombies climbing over the wall preying on citizens evacuating the helicopters. Connor charged the foes with guns
blazing. Alternating between his right and left gun Connor skillfully took headshot after headshot. Over ten fell to his prowess before two jumped him from the side. As they pinned him to the ground, he could only fight them off with his hands.

  Sara, with blades in hand, broke into the skirmish at the helicopter landing. With deadly accuracy and precision she cut zombies down like blades of grass. Moses and Val came barreling in with new firepower killing those that Sara could not touch. When the fighting broke, Sara went back to find Connor. Moving two zombie bodies away, she found him. He shook from shock and his eyes darted every which way unable to focus. Not until she tried to move him did she realize his left leg had been severed. She made him sit up while she yelled for Val. Together they carried him to one of the nearby buildings while Moses kept the zombies at bay.

  When they were inside, they propped him up against a wall. There Val looked him over. He had been bitten several times and was missing chunks of flesh on much of his body. Val examined the wound and tears came to her eyes. Putting her hand on his quivering cheek, she sighed. “Oh, Connor,” she whispered.

  Sara left them to return to the fight. Burning with rage, she exited the building to find zombies overrunning the landing pads again. Like a tornado, she whirled among them slicing at anything standing in her way. Limbs, heads, and bodies, littered the ground behind her as she passed.

  She made her way to a pocket of resistance holding out in a two story building. The haze of battle kept her from recognizing it as the Fountain Police Station where Brady was held. She looked up at it to find several people had setup a defensive position on the roof. A part of the building had been demolished in the fight so Sara made her way towards that entrance instead of the main doors. As she stepped inside, one of the soldiers within grabbed her arm and pulled her in. She tripped on his foot and was sent plummeting to the ground before Brady’s cell.

  Looking up, she met his gaze as he stood behind the bars holding his wound. He said something to her but she could not hear him for the noise. In a terrifying display the ceiling above Brady’s head tore away. She shielded her eyes from the debris burying her head in her arms. When she looked up again, she found Brady both untouched by the flying wreckage and completely serene. Behind him blocking out the sky stood a creature unlike any she had ever seen. It seemed neither like a second level zombie nor their king. This was an altogether different terror. The horrible sinews burst from its muscular frame like a package wrapped in cords. The thing towered above the others with its head reaching to where the second story of the building had been. Almost casually, it had torn off the front side of the building along with a chunk of the second floor in a single motion.

  Terror emanated out of it. The eyes of it sucked in the world around it taking all things good and pleasant with it. She felt within its pupils the void of outer space and hopelessness. The sensation crushed her very soul in the awareness of some evil altogether unseen. As if it sapped her strength, Sara could feel her will being absorbed out of her. The beast stole it as apathetically as it swindled all life around it. Paralyzed by fear, the soldiers cowered before it. A few men on the outside tried to shoot at it, but it had a will far too strong to be broken by such mere means. It stood infinitely superior like a boy opening the chest of lifeless toys soldiers.

  “I love you,” Brady repeated in the almost perfect silence of the soldier’s awe. His comment drew Sara’s eyes back down to him. For the briefest moment, it seemed like the fighting was far away. She forgot all the madness of the last few weeks and remembered him only as her loving husband Brady. Brady stood there reaching his hand between the bars towards her. Confused at his calm behavior and what was taking place, she put her hand in his. As she looked into his eyes, an overwhelming love cast out the fear she didn’t realize was strangling her heart. A now unfamiliar sunlight broke through the clouds, shining down on the broken jail, basking it in forgotten golden rays. Unable to move or even process what was happening, Sara stood to watch in silent protest as the beast reached down and simply plucked Brady into the air. Their fingers untwined and his hand slipped out of hers.

  And just like that, Sara stood alone with everyone around her trembling on the floor.

  With Brady’s touch left all the warmth from her body sending shivers down her spine. Standing numb as if reeling from a fatal wound, she looked down at herself expecting to see some mortal laceration her mind refused to acknowledge. But to her surprise she was completely untouched.

  Unable to control her legs, she fell to her knees sobbing. The once cool breeze now seemed harsh. It passed straight through her, cutting straight to the bone. As she looked about her still confused, she realized the sun was normally bright by now, but her surroundings were still draped in icy shadows. The light, that had momentarily surrounded the house, was reduced once again to the mid-morning dimness. Feeling naked, exposed, and disoriented, she came at last to the end of herself. A now distant world of blurry images whirled about her.

  Moses, seeing Sara’s confusion, picked her up removing her from the front lines.

  ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  Moses spent the remainder of the fight alongside Val on the front lines. Sara, still a little dazed, spent her time caring for and defending the wounded. By the time the sun finally rose to its dimmed glory, the humans were cleaning up the last of the enemy. Sara exited the crude hospital for the first time in hours. What she saw reminded her of pictures of the Civil War from one of her text books. Bodies lined the ground so completely it was impossible to walk about the city without stepping on them. Sara stood silently taking in the scene.

  “We’re still here,” Sara announced to Moses for lack of any other greeting.

  “And the battle is won,” Moses replied. “But at great cost.”

  “How is that possible? The last I knew, we were being overrun at every turn.”

  “I distinctly saw them break and run,” Moses replied. “Their reasoning is unknown to me. That is the only way we survived.”

  “How many of us are left?”

  “Less than half.”

  Silently, Sara put her hand on his shoulder as she walked by him.

  When Val found Sara later that day, she sat on a lawn chair wrapped in a blanket as she stared out at the field of bodies. Sara pulled her feet up to give Val room. They sat there together in silence for a while until Sara spoke. “Why does it take sickness, pain, and death to make us realize we are so frail? Are we not always so fragilely clinging to life? It’s just in those moments of distress that we’re finally willing to admit it and look for something stronger.” She looked up at Val with her bloodshot eyes. “Is that why there’s suffering in the world?”

  Val looked at the broken woman before her. “I don’t know. Sounds like a question for Brady.”

  They sat together in silence for a moment unsure of how to proceed.

  “Brady,” Sara finally began, “told me I would dream in flames as he did. And I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve been having this reoccurring nightmare. There’s this pillar of fire consuming everything and I wonder if that’s just the beginning of something terrible. I wake up at night in a cold sweat afterwards.”

  “I know. You were miserable last night before the battle. You were probably having one of those nightmares. What do you think the flames mean?”

  “There’s a sense of urgency about it. Every time it happens, the pillar seems closer, more powerful, and more real. But I don’t know what to do. It’s very frustrating. What good is knowing something will happen when you’re unable to do anything about it?”

  “Does it have anything to do with the fires in the south?”

  “It seems different. I’m not sure.” Changing the subject again she continued, “What happened after I left last night?”

  “Everyone fought to the last man. We had to fight them hand to hand because there were so many. Finally, we boarded ourselves up in the buildings as a last resort. After that those snipers couldn’t
get at us. We were able to keep the zombies more at bay. Moses claims the zombies backed off after Brady was taken. I think we just killed most of them and they finally fled. Either way, it was a miracle we weren’t completely overrun.”

  “Did you ever see the humans?”

  “I didn’t. But I hear they shot down my helicopters.” Val grew a little emotional. “I should have been up there but Connor wouldn’t let me. I almost did it anyway, but with the state he’s in lately, I feared he’d start killing people. When we started to lose, Connor wanted the helicopters used for escape instead of combat. So they didn’t even defend themselves. They were dead from the beginning. Now all my friends are dead. I want to blame Connor. But I know he was just trying to get people out.”

  Sara put her hand on Val’s arm. Sara said, “Have you gone and seen him since last night?”

  “No. I probably should.”

  “He’s probably awake by now.”

  “I’m afraid of what I’ll find. I barely recognized him before he lost his leg. Now who knows what he’ll be. He’s done awful things. There’s a reason we don’t get along.”

  “Still,” Sara said, “I think you should at least see him.”

  “You’re probably right.” Val stood up and soon found herself dragging her feet towards the makeshift hospital.

  ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  Val stood at the entrance of the hospital for a long time before entering. Several people walked past her giving her strange looks as if she should decide to come in or stay out.

  When she stepped inside, she found what she feared. The sight of twisted bodies strewn across tables and gurneys turned her stomach. Val made her way quickly through the first room. She finally found the courage to look down to the floor and found the tile sticky with blood.

  At the opening to the second room, she saw someone she recognized. There thrown onto a table was Liz the head guard. One of her arms dangled helplessly off the table and her head leaned over the edge. To Val’s surprise and horror, her upside down eyes followed Val. The scene brought tears to Val’s eyes. Val stepped closer and could easily determine Liz’s wounds were fatal. A large portion of her lower abdomen was completely missing exposing the bone beneath.