The Lazarus Impact

by Todarello, Vincent

  Brandon realizes quickly that this won’t be like his zombie games, where the characters always start out in some heavily populated urban area, with things exploding and swarms of undead looming around each tight street corner. In a way it depresses him. He looks forward to the thrill of watching brains explode out the back of zombies’ heads. But he’s in the rural and suburban sprawl of Pennsylvania. If he’s lucky he’ll see one or two Zs on his gas trip, unless, of course, he goes to the mall. In the movies the mall is always jammed with zombies. But the closest mall is 15 miles at least, and probably wasn’t even busy when the outbreak started on Christmas. Brandon will have to seek them out in the neighborhoods if he wants to see any action. I’ll have to hunt them, but only on the way to the station. Not on the way back when I’m loaded with gas.

  As he walks through his neighborhood he can’t help but think back to video footage he saw of tornado damage. Some homes are perfectly okay, while others are completely shredded to shit. The scenery looks like all of his post apocalyptic games. All that’s missing are the monsters. He keeps a sharp eye out for them.

  At one house he sees some dead folks roaming around in a sunroom through the windows. The home is completely intact. There’s no damage like at his house and others. But the front door is wide open, leading into the sunroom porch. He starts throwing rocks toward it to draw the zombies’ attention, hoping they’ll shamble out into the daylight where he can watch their brains exit the back of their heads. It’s no fun if you can’t see it. A few throws later a man emerges from the open doorway. Brandon, sprawled out on the asphalt, looks like a corpse himself, only he has his eye trained down the barrel of his father’s rifle, propping it up on an empty gas can to keep it steady. He squeezes the trigger and misses. The bullet whizzes past the man and shatters the windows behind. An undead woman comes out of the glassed porch then. They both wander around, confused, but after Brandon’s second missed shot, they begin to follow the sound of the gun. They’re walking right toward him. Brandon’s third shot hits the man’s knee and drops him to the driveway pavement. The fourth is a headshot, but since he’s already on the ground, there’s no flying brain. One down.

  The woman begins to walk faster toward Brandon, realizing he is food. He fires and hits her shoulder, knocking her backward. She regains her footing and keeps coming. Another shot hits the neck. Blood gushes everywhere, and a string of crimson whips into the air. Brandon quickly adjusts and lets the final shot fly. Right between the eyes. Her brains spray out the back of her head so far that some of it lands on the doorstep, sailing all the way up from the bottom of the driveway.

  “Yes!” he cheers. Brandon laughs hysterically in victory, but he knows it was a poor showing. Seven rounds for two zombies. My aim needs to improve. Real life is not like the video games. The gun has kickback instead of just vibrating like a game controller. His shoulder hurts because of it. He can’t zoom in when using his gun sights either, like in the video games, so his glasses are necessary. And reloading doesn’t happen with the push of a button. It takes time, concentration, two hands. I need to work on my speed.

  Brandon heads up to the front door and enters the sunroom. His missed shots left shards of broken window all over the floor. The door leading to the inside of the house is closed and locked. But a window beside it is shattered as well, and now left wide open. His bullets went clear through the sunroom and into the actual home. The two zombies must’ve wandered in, trying to get into the house. He hears commotion inside the house. He realizes there may be people alive inside.

  “Hello?” he shouts. He hears nothing in response. “Anyone in there?” He hears words he can’t understand. Another language. Not the grunts of a corpse. He reaches into the window opening and unlocks the front door. He steps inside. He hears thuds and footsteps coming from upstairs. Then the sound of a woman coughing, and more unknown words coming from a man. He can’t understand what they mean, but he sure knows they sound frantic. “Hello?” he says again as he approaches the bottom stair.

  Suddenly a man with a gas mask turns the corner from the top of the stairs and charges at him with a handgun raised in the air. Brandon turns and runs for the door as the bullets fly past his head. He runs back down the driveway, grabs his gas cans and keeps on going. He hears more gunshots from behind. He runs in a zigzag pattern to avoid getting hit. He turns and fires back wildly, without even really aiming. He fumbles with his gas cans and rifle, but he keeps running. Then he hears screaming. I hit him? He turns to see the man keeled over on the ground in pain.

  “Oh shit. Oh shit,” he says, realizing he just killed a real person. But was it? It’s a man behind a mask. An enemy who shot at me first. And there was coughing too. They were infected. Did my misfired shots break the windows and cause the poisonous air to get in? Did I cause the coughing? Did they think I was breaking in to attack them? Maybe they didn’t understand my words, like I couldn’t understand theirs. It was all a misunderstanding. It was an accident. In a video game he would lose points, or lose the information and items that the uninfected would provide for him. This is the real world though. There are consequences here, like punishment and jail time. He runs, and runs, and runs.

  But would there be jail? Will I get caught? He looks around. I’m in a ghost town. There are no rules. There is no law, only survival. The wave of guilt suddenly washes away as fast as it came upon him. I can do whatever the fuck I want! The world has bigger problems now. He slows to a jog, then a trot, then a walk. He shakes the incident from his mind. Back to the task at hand. Back to getting gas for the generator.

  CHAPTER 28

  Willy draws the curtains back from the window, bathing the rest of the grotesque room with light. Sheryl peeks out the window. Two cannibals are at the car, scratching at the windows to get at Rocky. His barking is incessant.

  “There’s more coming,” Willy says, looking off across the parking lot. Several zombies slowly make their way toward the car from all around. “And you need target practice. Since we’re stuck here, you may as well start shooting.”

  Sheryl takes aim at one near the car. Even with a pistol it’s difficult to shoot with a bad arm, but setting up like this is easier than before, when the zombies were streaming into the room to attack them.

  “Not them ones. We got to get those close range. Don’t want to shoot out our car windows,” Willy instructs.

  Sheryl turns toward the others. All is silent but Rocky’s barking and the scratching at the apartment door from the evil that lingers in the hall. Sheryl tunes it all out, like she used to tune out the boys’ fighting while she was trying to pay bills or cook dinner. Her heart sinks a little at the thought, but she exhales an even breath and squeezes the trigger. She blinks at the noise and kick of the gun, but she hits her target. The shot to the zombie’s upper back spins it around. Now she can see its bloodied, ravenous face. She squeezes off another shot and hits it in the eye.

  “Good shooting,” Willy congratulates her. He takes the rifle down from across his back and puts the shotgun down. Sheryl watches him, confused. “Shotgun is like a spray of small pellets. Not too good over long distances.” Sheryl gives him an understanding nod. “Rifle is for hunting at a distance.”

  Willy uses the butt of the gun to knock out the remaining shards of glass left clinging to the window. He takes a knee and balances the rifle on the sill. He aims and fires. A distant beast drops in death. Willy spins and fires another shot. Another bull’s eye. Then a third.

  “You’re like a sniper,” Sheryl compliments.

  “Used to be a sharp shooter. Was in the military. Marines.” He pulls his sleeve back to show his tattoo as proof. “Keep practicing. You needa become one yourself.”

  Sheryl takes aim again and fires, this time at a more distant creature, hitting its kneecap and dropping it to the ground. Willy notices her face contorted in frustration.

  “It’s alright. If he can’t stand he can’t walk, and if he can’t walk he can’t get to us. Right no
w that’s just as good as a headshot. Just need to clear a path to the car,” Willy says between shots, reassuring Sheryl with confidence-boosting compliments.

  They each reload and continue their target practice. When the zombies are too far for Sheryl to hit with her pistol, Willy shows her how to use the rifle. After a while, when the lot is somewhat clear except for the two zombies by the car, he instructs her to look for some rope. But there is none. Willy joins her in the search. He quickly decides to tie a bunch of sheets together as a substitute. He looks around the floor near the windows for something sturdy, something anchored down. He starts to pull the covers off the baseboard heaters, exposing the pipes that carry the hot water through the apartment. He threads the sheets around them and ties a tight knot, giving it a few tugs to test for strength.

  “That’ll do,” he says. “Check around for supplies and such. Can never have too much.”

  Together they pack some dried goods and bottled fluids into a suitcase they find in one of the closets. Sheryl raids the medicine cabinet for some basics as well. There she notices the herpes medication prescribed to the bitch that stole her husband. Good thing I stopped fucking him after he started fucking you, she thinks to herself as she closes the mirrored door. The sight of her own masked face staring back startles her, and she gasps. At times she forgets she’s even wearing it.

  Willy lowers the suitcase down with the opposite end of the tied sheets, and he begins to climb down. The two remaining zombies by the car suddenly switch their attention from Rocky to him.

  “Lookout!” Sheryl warns him.

  “I’ll hang here. When they get away from the car you shoot ‘em,” Willy says.

  “What if I miss?”

  “Don’t,” Willy says after a pause. He looks all around as he dangles. The shotgun and rifle slung across his back begin to slide and spin on their strap. He finds footing on the outer windowsill of the second floor apartment.

  Sheryl fires and kills the first one, but the second one is nearly at the building already. The cannibal positions itself directly beneath Willy, and Sheryl can’t get a line of sight on it. Willy is in the way. She runs over from the living room to the bedroom window and opens it wider. There’s a better angle from there. She can see the zombie grabbing for Willy’s shoe. She takes aim and fires; a clean headshot.

  Willy climbs down the rest of the way and carries the suitcase of supplies to the car as Sheryl starts to make her way down the sheets. Her good hand is shaking with nerves, and her injured arm is useless, so she places her feet on the second floor windowsill where Willy did, breathing heavily and trying to steady her panic. Willy is beneath her now, keeping one eye on her and the other on the parking lot. A few of the wounded zombies with broken, twisted limbs that Sheryl mowed over with the car drag themselves over. Willy can see the hunger in their faces.

  “Keep comin’ now. You can do it. This is the easy part,” Willy coaches her.

  Just then there is a slam on the window in front of Sheryl. The entire pane of glass rattles and shakes. She screams at the sight of the zombie behind it, scratching and clawing at the window in a feverish attempt to eat her. The fog of its putrid breath on the thin glass obscures the horrific vision. Sheryl’s face is only inches from the beast but the sudden start makes her lose her footing. She slips off the sill. Her grip was already loosened on the sheets while she was catching her breath. She grabs for the makeshift rope but it’s too late. She falls backwards, away from the building, with her eyes fixed on the demon above. But an instant later she feels the bony, weathered, yet muscled embrace of Willy’s arms as she falls into them. He caught her like a child.

  He slowly places her feet down on the pavement. She doesn’t have to thank him. He already knows she’s grateful. Sheryl hands Willy the keys and they hurry to the car. Rocky greets them with excited whimpers and slimy licks. They drive off.

  #

  After burning west at top speed for a while, an array of lights start flashing on the police cruiser’s dashboard. The engine is hot, and fuel is low. The signs on the highway say the next gas station is 11 miles away. The car sounds like death, but they press on, their eyes glued to the odometer. Willy is sure they can make it. A few mile markers later and they see the pull off up ahead.

  “Think we can even fill up there? Everything is electronic. How do you get gas out when there’s no power?” Sheryl asks. Willy isn’t concerned.

  CHAPTER 29

  The road leading to the highway is filled with parked cars. Brandon tries them all but the doors are locked. One or two even have the unholy creatures trapped inside. The unfortunate souls turned into zombies while driving. Brandon can hear them groaning as he passes. He’s half tempted to blow one of them away and take the car for a joyride. Why not? I just killed a man and got away with it. There’s no law, or at least in time there won’t be any. But he’s half afraid, too. He never drove anything except the cars in video games where you get points for crashing, causing multi-vehicle pile-ups, and mowing down pedestrians. It can’t be that hard. But he doesn’t try.

  He cautiously passes shopping centers and chain restaurants. Most were closed when the impact hit, so no one was out shopping. But afterward people must have gone out for supplies, thinking they could hunker down and survive this mess. There are stray zombies up ahead at some of the stores. He sees them. He walks quietly and slowly, crouching behind cars and hedges along the side of the road. His eyes scan the scene slowly until they come upon a naked woman. Then his gaze is locked. Damn, she’s hot! I’d hit that. The glazed yellow look in her eyes is almost lost behind the long ratty blonde hair that dangles down in front of her face and falls upon her tits. I don’t care if she’s a zombie. I’d still hit that. But what about the smell? Never mind the blood and gore that smatters her skin. Brandon can see streams of piss running down her thighs and shit stains at the bottom of her ass. His face contorts in disgust. I wonder if I’d catch the zombie disease from banging her. If not, I’d definitely hit that. Just have to tie her down, cover her mouth, and clean her up a little.

  He forces himself to turn his attention back to the road, despite the raging boner in his pants. He eyes Dickie’s Outdoor Sports Shop and is almost tempted to go in for some supplies, but he worries about zombies lurking in the shadows within. No lights inside a large building with no windows and lots of clothing racks and aisles to hide zombies. There may not be much left on the shelves, but whatever is there would be mine for the taking. He had no problems with looting in an emergency like this. But he passes on the idea. Too risky.

  Soon he reaches the highway, and the gas station is in sight. Less than a mile to go. But ahead in the distance he can hear a lone car approaching. Then he sees it; a police officer. He ducks back and slinks off into the woods along the road, peeking out behind some trees to see what’s happening. The last thing I need is a cop asking me why I have a gun. Wild thoughts of rationality overtake him. Maybe they already know about the man I shot. Maybe he or the coughing woman upstairs struggled to a phone and somehow called the police. Maybe they gave a description and they’re looking for me. Maybe the world isn’t ending. Maybe there’s still law and order, and this is all trumped up in my mind. Maybe I’m going crazy.

  He stays clear of the dry leaves as he quietly continues to move closer and closer. The car pulls into the gas station and parks beside one of the pumps. Smoke rises up from the hood. Brandon can hear the bell ding twice as the front and back wheels cross over the strips of tubing that lay across the pump docks. The engine shuts. Brandon moves closer and closer, but no one comes out of the car. He flattens himself on the ground and props his gun up on a gas can. He looks down the barrel at the scene before him. Nothing moves. Is the cop waiting for full service? Waiting for some young, greasy haired foreigner to pump his gas?

  Then suddenly a ruckus comes from within the convenience store, near the cash registers. Brandon hears glass breaking and things falling. Maybe someone is looting. Did the cop hear it? Maybe
his radio is on and he was talking, maybe he was talking to his partner, or maybe the sound wasn’t loud enough to hear from inside the car. But the sound of commotion cuts short as quickly as it began. Then the car engine starts again, and it rolls up to the next pump. The bell chimes again as they pass another set of rubber strips on the pavement. Immediately, the noises begin again from inside the store.

  Then Brandon sees it. It presses its face against the windows on the inside of the store, between banners for cigarettes and motor oil. Blood smears across the glass as it moves toward the sound of the running engine. The driver’s side door opens and an older man steps out with a shotgun and a rag tied across his face. A bandit? No. What am I thinking? This isn’t the old west. It’s a makeshift breathing mask. The man wearing it walks right up to the store window, lifts his gun to his shoulder, and blasts the risen creature in the face. The glass shatters and falls all around the dead zombie, piercing the air with mayhem. That’s no cop. That’s a survivor. It’s already become lawless. The guy stole a police car. The end is here!

  A moment later a woman steps out of the passenger side door wearing a cheap hospital-issued gas mask. Her arm is in a sling, but she has a slim, sexy body. Nice... A MILF. She walks toward the store, poking her head through the broken window to check for more cannibals. An instant later one of them comes running from the service garage in a mechanic’s jumpsuit. Brandon instinctively fires a round at it. Bull’s eye. The headshot causes a fine crimson mist to fill the air around the beast before it flops to the ground. The man and woman stop in their tracks. Their heads turn to follow the sound of Brandon’s rifle. He stands up and walks over to greet them. I’m getting good at this whole sniper thing.