Sorrow

by Brian Wortley

  The monster’s impact sent several zombies stumbling Val’s direction and she couldn’t help being thrown into a nearby wall. She quickly managed to draw a knife and sever the throats of those thrown against her. Rising to her feet, she took a moment to survey the creature that emerged from the zombie ranks like a spike from the ground. As it tore into Owen’s chest and quickly devoured his heart, Val caught a glimpse of the thing’s teeth. They rose to a sharp point as if filed. The disgusting thing barely seemed human. The bulk of its hair had fallen out and one of its eyes had been completely shredded and dangled out of its eye socket. The intact eye swirled about wildly at the resisting humans. A large chunk of bulging flesh hung from the right side of its head like a sack of fluid. Its mouth boasted twisted teeth. Long open gashes ran down the thing's head from crown to neck. The muscles beneath twitched as the monster consumed what remained of Owen.

  The impact of spurting blood smacked Val back to her senses. She turned and grabbed Ian’s hand. Together the two ran for the nearest uninhabited alley. Val fell to her knees a few times as the zombies bit at her, but Ian managed to pull her up again. Frantically they charged behind a wall and tore down the alley. When she could manage, she looked back to find no others followed.

  Moses stumbled forward blindly. His fingers frantically searched for something solid ahead of him. He luckily managed to find the wall of a building in front of him. He ran his fingers down its rough surface until he came to glass. Making a fist, he broke it in a single blow and cleared away the jagged edges as best he could manage. In desperation, he yelled one more time for anyone’s help or guidance but the sounds of war muffled him and he was forced to climb in through the window.

  Carlos grabbed Connor and tore him from the grasp of several zombies. Connor almost fell onto Carlos but he caught him and leaned Connor against him so they could run. Andrea and Sara covered their retreat so the two could move back into the building they just evacuated.

  Carlos setup one of the larger guns near the doorway and sprayed bullets out into the crowd. The hideous queen pushed her way through the dead and slammed violently into the doorway. The impact sent Sara and Andrea to their knees. Carlos found himself face to face with the abomination. Like a fiery demon she glared down at him in anger and raised her terrible hands to strike him. Carlos raised his hands in self-defense but soon screamed when he felt the queen’s blade pierce through it. Lifting him by this new incision, the queen raised Carlos off his feet and into the air. She leaned in to bite into his intestines right below the rib cage, but her blade split Carlos’ palm under the weight of his body. And so her teeth clenched down on his ribs. The beast released him to fall to the ground. Carlos crumpled to the floor grasping his split hand.

  Andrea valiantly drew her knife and started stabbing the queen to keep her from devouring Carlos. The queen responded to this attack by almost effortlessly throwing Andrea into a nearby wall. Andrea’s limp body fell off the wall onto the floor. The imprint of her body lined the sheetrock forever.

  This left Connor and Sara to face the monster alone. Connor heroically stood between the queen and Sara but Sara pushed him over. She had grabbed one of the larger guns and placed it on a countertop. With Connor out of the way, Sara opened fire. The flames roared from the barrel sending dozens of bullets into the queen. Chunks of the queen’s upper body blew off splattering against the wall behind her. The queen ducked forcing Sara to stop and re-aim. The beast lunged towards Connor on its way to Sara but eventually the barrage of bullets convinced it to retreat. Just before the clip ran out, the queen retreated back into the street.

  Connor pulled himself over to Andrea and woke her. She stared at Connor for a moment as if she did not recognize him. A trail of blood ran through her hair and down onto her face. Connor used a nearby towel to mop it up.

  “Are we dead?” Andrea asked when she seemed to come back to her senses.

  “We’re not that lucky,” Connor replied.

  With the queen gone, Carlos stood and quickly looked out the door. “There are more out there,” he announced to Sara. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Anybody see where Val and Ian went?” Sara asked.

  But none replied.

  “They knew we were heading for the locomotive,” Connor said.

  “But they don’t know where it is,” Sara replied. “We have to find them.”

  “Let’s go to the roof and see,” Carlos suggested.

  “We’ll be trapped up there and have to fight our way back down,” Sara answered.

  Everyone stopped for a moment to kill several zombies that entered.

  “Out the back,” Sara ordered.

  Carlos stopped only for a moment to tie a rag around the two parts of his hand.

  Andrea turned away when she saw his split hand and how the fingers still moved. She had been fighting the rotting dead for months now but for some reason that seemed too much.

  Soon everyone ran out the back door and into the backstreet. Luckily, the enemy had little presence here. Carlos tried to swing his bat and kill one of the zombies but found he wasn’t strong enough with his left hand. Andrea had to finish the job with her shotgun.

  “Anybody want this?” Carlos said sadly holding up his now legendary bat. No one did, so he let it fall sadly to the street.

  They ran for several blocks running into little resistance. Sara couldn’t help noticing how Andrea wiped the stream of blood from her face every few blocks. Carlos, obviously trying not to show how much his hand hurt him, clenched his lip in misery.

  Not too long after, they heard a nearby firefight and Sara detoured to investigate. Sara’s team burst into a nearby square to find Ian and Val defending themselves on a metal awning.

  Without the time for words, Sara’s team setup and began to help. They all had cleared most of the enemy when suddenly the wall behind Ian and Val gave way. Bricks came raining down from their vantage point as the ledge on which Ian and Val took refuge collapsed. From behind the crumbling brick wall came the hideous frame of the queen. She managed to climb up the building from behind and burst through the wall towards the two humans.

  Ian fell and landed on his back while Val managed to grab a piece of the nearby building to break her fall. The queen quickly disappeared back into the building when Sara’s team started firing at her. Val let herself fall gracefully onto the street and rejoined the others.

  “Nice of you guys to come find us!” Val said cheerfully.

  Sara fired a round that successfully blew off a zombie’s head. And then as nonchalantly as spitting, she leaned over and vomited into the gutter. Without a word, she stood up straight and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

  “What are you girls all standing around for? Haven’t you ever seen a pregnant woman throw up? Let’s run!”

  Val helped Ian up. His back seemed alright for the most part. As Val felt each rib, he screamed at one. Val assumed it to be broken.

  “At least you didn’t break your spine,” Val said.

  The noise of the approaching queen hurried their speed and they soon ran several more blocks towards the train yard. Sara and Connor needed a rest and so Val and Andrea setup to defend against several zombies following them.

  After executing a few well-placed headshots, Val turned to her troops. Suddenly her eyes darted back and forth between them. “Where the hell’s Moses?”

  Ian thought about it and said, “I haven’t seen him since Owen died.”

  Val stood up and looked around as if expecting to see him a block away.

  “Sara,” Val said turning to her friend, “where is he?”

  “He’s lost now,” Sara replied. “We should keep going to the train.”

  “But he’s alive?”

  Sara peered at her friend through her blindfold. For a moment, she considered lying to her. “For now,” she answered.

  “Then we’re going to find him.”

  “Even if you save him now,” Sara protested, “he’s a dead man!”


  “Sara, would you just throw me away like that?”

  “He’s a dead man! How am I throwing him away?”

  “If I save him now, how long will he live?”

  “Till the train. Is it worth risking your own life to save him when he’ll die soon anyway?”

  “Damn it, Sara, are we just numbers to you?” Val took a step towards Carlos, “Give me your leather jacket. At least I’ll be harder to bite through. And I’ll take your bat too.”

  Carlos’ face sank. “I abandoned Britney,” he said sadly. “I couldn’t swing her hard enough to kill anything so she’s back there somewhere. Lying in the street alone.”

  “You named your bat Britney? Carlos-” Val started to say but then realized she had far too little energy and far too much apathy to actually finish that sentence.

  “That queen’s still out there,” Sara protested.

  “Sara, what is going on? Do you want Moses to die?” Val pulled on the leather jacket and continued, “You’ve never really liked him, have you?”

  Sara made no answer.

  “Well, I don’t know about you assholes,” Val started to say, “but I’m going to go get him.” No one made any indication that they would be coming along.

  “I’ll come,” Connor announced.

  Val shot him a rejecting glance and he slumped back against the wall.

  “Are you at least going to tell me where he is?” Val asked Sara.

  “That way,” Sara replied. “Behind the wall in the zombie city. The building that’s full of death.” Sara pulled Val closer. Val couldn’t decide if it seemed more proper to look at Sara’s blindfold or look away. “There is something very foul there. Do not linger!”

  Val looked off that direction and scanned the street for Carlos’ bat. All of a sudden it seemed like an appealing quiet weapon.

  “Any other words of wisdom, Sara? Or anyone?” When Sara said nothing, Val complained, “Really, Sara? You can see into the future and you have like three sentences to say and none of them terribly descriptive.”

  “Don’t die,” Sara replied with a smile.

  Val shook her head at Sara. “I don’t know what has gotten into you. But I don’t like it. You’re being a genuine asshole lately.” Val then turned to the others and said, “So I’ll meet you at the train yard? Which I can only assume is that direction.”

  “We’ll wait for you there,” Ian said.

  Without another word, Val bolted off in the direction Sara indicated.

  ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙

  Val quickly gave up any hopes of finding Carlos’ bat. The city seemed to stretch out before her now that she wandered its streets alone.

  Several times in the next ten blocks she stopped short to let groups of zombies pass by unaware of her. All enemies seemed to be heading directly for the group’s location. Val thought if she had more courage or speed, she might try to distract them from the group. But as things were, that seemed far more dangerous than it would be worth.

  Val ran by a store paying it no attention at first, but then doubled back when she realized its name. She threw open the doors of the sports shop and quickly browsed the merchandise.

  What exited appeared to be a completely different Val. On her legs she bore shin guards. On her torso a baseball catcher’s vest. On her arms she fashioned several wrist guards from the archery section. In her hand she held a child-sized metal bat that she could swing at great speeds almost effortlessly. And finally her face was hid behind a hockey goalie mask. Altogether she seemed like a poorly dressed sports fanatic on a Halloween night.

  Val continued on and soon came to a wall of cars and debris similar to the one she remembered from Colorado Springs. The entrance seemed to be a block down. An entrance seemed more desirable than scaling the jagged metal edges of the barricade. But she soon found several enemies around the entrance. Having little choice, Val ran up behind one of them and caved in its head before it even realized she arrived. The other two whirled around and pounced. Val managed to dodge one’s leap but the other knocked her squarely into a short metal fence. Luckily the second catcher’s vest she strapped to her back saved the metal spokes from puncturing her skin, but she still felt the impact deeply against her ribs.

  At such close range Val’s bat proved worthless and so she dropped it in favor of her knife. She thrust down at her attacker’s throat hoping to puncture something. Her eyes darted up to the second foe that quickly rose from his jump and now charged her. Val changed her efforts to more of a slashing motion against the first foe’s neck and to her surprise he seemed to lessen his attacks. The second zombie impacted her knocking her entirely over the metal fence and onto the ground behind it. Val’s head hit the dirt but her shoulders took most of the brunt.

  Val took a moment to regain her senses and wrapped her arms around the second zombie’s throat. She’d never tried to strangle a zombie before but when she considered it she didn’t know why she couldn’t. The gnarled face glared as it drooled through her hockey mask. The horrible saliva dripped through the mask and ran down Val’s cheek. The zombie’s hands ran up and down her torso desperately searching for an opening in the armor. When the fingers located a space between the two vests, they dug in immediately drawing blood. Val screamed and took one of her hands off the zombie’s throat to search for her knife.

  Val felt the zombie’s dead fingers dig around one of her ribs and grab a hold. The sensation of having a single rib pulled horrified her. Val screamed again when she felt the bone snap under the terrible pull of the zombies grasp. Without hesitating, the zombie’s fingers shot into the opening created by the missing rib. An immediate shortness of breath made Val think his dirty fingernails punctured her lung. Val’s finger hit something sharp and sliced open the first third of her index finger. Her hand wrapped around her knife and she thrust it into the zombie’s temple. His fingers froze their scrounging in Val’s lung. She thrust again and again until parts of the decaying head fell down through the cracks of the mask getting into Val’s face and mouth.

  Finally gaining the upper hand, Val pushed the zombie off her. She tore off her mask and stabbed wildly at the thing’s head until she had little strength left in her arm. With it dead, Val turned to attack the first but found it lying against the fence glaring at her but unable to move. A terrible rasping noise came from its hacked throat that convinced Val she had finally managed to hit something important. She left it dying there and charged into the entrance.

  Only once inside did she examine her broken rib. In disgust she placed her finger inside the opening and found the broken rib pushed aside. It seemed painful to draw in deep breaths. She feared this would keep her from running. Her finger came back out of the wound covered in blood. Val groaned and leaned against a wall.

  She slowly made her way deeper inside the zombie city. As she neared the center, she found one building grander than the rest. Skeletons lined the outside. A great opening inhabited the front of the building but Val found it too dark inside to see beyond its frame. She grasped her bat a little tighter and walked towards it. As she did, a foul stench raided her nostrils. She used the sleeve of her left hand to cover her nose and proceeded.

  Inside she found the dead. They lined the floor like the sight of a mass suicide. Val quickly examined one body and found no cuts or bullet holes. She pounded its head with her bat a few times to be sure it was actually dead.

  As Val moved deeper into the building, she became aware of a deadly foe. She immediately drew the sidearm she promised herself she wouldn’t use for fear of the noise. Chills shot down her spine that made her forget her broken rib. There seated on a makeshift throne sat a hideous and unmistakable king zombie. Even with its head tilted back against the throne, Val knew the telltale signs on the deadly menace.

  “Moses,” Val whispered.

  No response.

  Val dared to take a few steps forward and became aware of a terrible rasping noise seeming to come from the king. She looked down to fi
nd her knees shaking at the threat of his living body and possibly active mind. Val could not help noticing the monster clutched something in its right arm. With it he pressed the object against his chest. His left hand grasped the edge of the chair arm as if his very life depended on it.

  Immediately Val regretted coming here. She wondered if Sara had been right and she should have let Moses die. But the thought of him blind and alone in this madness sealed her to this task. Val heard a faint cough coming from the room behind the throne.

  “Moses,” she whispered again as if afraid to wake the dead.

  To Val’s horror her voice produced something. She thought her mind played tricks on her at first but at the second glance Val distinctly saw the king’s neck muscles straining to lift the head. A woeful moan escaped the king’s jagged teeth. Val pointed her gun directly at its empty eye socket hoping the bullet would drill straight to its brain and end its corruption.

  Only one thing stopped her. His gaze. Despite having no eyes, the king gave off the saddest of expressions. The dying thing attempted to speak but as it opened its mouth only vomit seeped out. Like cottage cheese it fell in chunks from his rotted teeth onto his chest. Val stepped back in disgust. The king moved his right arm to reveal and offer Val the item he clutched. Val desperately fought back her gag reflex when she saw it. It was as horrifying as it was disgusting. There in the king’s clutch Val saw an infant zombie. The offspring of death.

  Val’s quick mind put the missing pieces together. “You reproduced,” Val said to him. “And Zalac murdered you for it.” Val glanced around the room. Suddenly she knew why none here bore bullet holes or cuts.

  Val screamed Moses' name and heard the coughing again and a weak voice. There leaning against the wall sat Moses.