The Good, the Dead, and the Lawless: The Undoing

by Archer, Angelique

  Now, not only would they be able to relax at her parents’ three-story estate in rural Georgia, but she would have the opportunity to show them how wonderful Ryan really was and how much he meant to her.

  “I hope they get our bags off the plane quickly. I’m starved,” Ryan said.

  Erin grinned, adorable dimples in her cheeks. “Oh, honey, you haven’t lived until you try my mom’s pot roast and peach cobbler.” She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed Ryan passionately. “I’m so excited for you to meet them. My sister, her husband, and my nephew will be there, too. He’s the cutest, he really is, but remind me to keep my hair in a ponytail.” Ryan looked at her quizzically. “One of his favorite pastimes is pulling my hair,” she explained.

  Ryan chuckled as they reached the bus. “Well, what do you expect from a three year-old? But you do have nice hair.” He paused to let her board before him. “Après vous,” he said in his best French accent.

  After a very crowded, albeit short, bus ride, they made their way to the baggage claim. While they waited at the assigned carousel, Ryan held Erin close and kissed her on the nose.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really excited to meet your family. It’ll be interesting to see where you grew up.”

  “You’re going to love them and vice versa. There’s a game at my old high school tomorrow night. I thought we could check that out. Football’s huge in my hometown.” She turned away as a flash of purple caught her eye. “Oh, there’s my bag!”

  Ryan moved to the carousel and pulled the suitcase off. “So you packed everything for both of us in this one suitcase?” When she nodded, he shook his head incredulously. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

  Erin’s green eyes misted and touched his arm tenderly. “I love you, Ryan. With all my heart.”

  The pair headed out the double doors to the bright Georgia sunshine and heavy airport traffic. “My parents called while we were still in the air. I checked my voicemail when we landed. They should be here in about fifteen minutes.”

  Ryan nodded and shrugged. “I’m not in any rush. I’m on vacation.”

  ***

  By the time Hamid stepped off the plane in Atlanta, he was a total mess. He could barely put one foot in front of the other. His hood was pulled far enough over his face so that passersby simply assumed he had a few too many cocktails on the flight. Spittle dripped from his mouth, sweat poured from his frame, and he could no longer form coherent thoughts. Bright sunlight greeted him from the entrance of the airport, and Hamid looked up, his eyes burning from the effort. He realized in that moment that it would be the last sunrise he ever saw, but that in the end, he would be eternalized as the great savior of mankind. Hamid collapsed and felt his final breath leave his lungs.

  Nearby, Ryan and Erin witnessed his fall and rushed to his side, Erin frantically dialing 9-1-1 on her cell phone as she ran. Ryan leaned over Hamid, checked for a pulse, and upon finding none, began CPR, rhythmically pumping his chest, tilting Hamid’s head back and lifting his chin, and breathing into his mouth. Ryan could hear a faint gurgling sound coming from the man and began to think that there was still hope.

  In a matter of seconds, what was once Hamid opened his eyes wide, now a dull, translucent, milky color. Its body remained motionless.

  Erin, suddenly noticing that Hamid’s eyes were open and terrifyingly unnatural, screamed a warning to Ryan, but it was too late.

  “Ryan! Something’s wrong. Look at his eyes!” she exclaimed. However, over the roar of buses, taxis, and passersby, her warning was drowned in the commotion.

  Ryan was so focused on saving his patient that he was still unaware of this new development and the ominous threat beneath him. Between the noise around him and his determination to put to good use all of the time, energy, and money spent on getting through medical school, he blocked out any distractions.

  This is how it would be in the real world. You’ve gotta stay focused, he reminded himself. He leaned down to Hamid’s mouth and attempted another round of artificial respiration.

  The fingers on Hamid’s newly animated corpse began to twitch and curl, the knuckles straining at odd angles. The undead man uttered a low and guttural moan, its lips pulled back over its teeth in a sinister snarl. Its jaw began to move as though chewing something invisible. Suddenly, it jerked forward and bit down on its rescuer’s lips, sinking its teeth into the tender flesh. Blood spewed at first, then began to drizzle around the corners of the zombie’s mouth as it shook its head back and forth trying to tear the flesh free.

  Ryan shrieked in astonishment and agony, his cries muted into the other’s mouth. He tried to pull away, screaming as his skin audibly started to rip. As he did so, the zombie groaned and ripped a chunk of skin away, revealing a grotesquely permanent sneer on Ryan’s once handsome face. Bloody teeth, shredded gums, and alabaster bones were now clearly visible.

  Ryan fell back in horror, his hands clamped tightly around his heinous wound, still screaming as blood poured freely from his face.

  Horrified and stunned, Erin rushed to him and futilely tried to stop the bleeding by pressing her coat to his lips.

  “Oh, my God! Baby, baby, oh, my God,” she sobbed. “What do you want me to do?”

  A crowd had now gathered about, and the zombie, still chewing on Ryan’s fleshy lips, slowly rose to its feet as it noticed the fresh meat about it. The surrounding people backed away after taking in its blood-spattered, otherworldly features. Several pulled out cell phones and began dialing 9-1-1.

  Bright red blood was dripping from the sinister man’s mouth, its fingers claw-like and feral, and its gait uneven and jerky. It continued to emit a throaty hiss as it moved forward.

  The zombie headed towards the meal it had started.

  Ryan lay on the ground, still bleeding profusely and drifting in and out of consciousness. Erin was on her cell phone, simultaneously crying and screaming for somebody to help them. She could not staunch the flow of blood and knew enough about emergency care that if Ryan didn’t get to a hospital fast, he was in big trouble.

  “Somebody, please!” she begged. “Help us!”

  Everyone around had backed away, also in shock. Erin noticed that Ryan’s attacker was headed in their direction. It looked like a man-eating shark that was coming back to finish its meal after taking a bite out of an unsuspecting swimmer.

  “Get away from him, you bastard! He was trying to help you!” The monster paid no attention. With only a few feet left until it made it to Ryan, she reached into the outer pocket of their nearby suitcase.

  Armed only with a pink pepper spray keychain, Erin rushed up to the zombie and sprayed the chemical into its face.

  Unfortunately, the zombie showed no signs of discomfort and instead diverted its attention from Ryan to her. Lunging forward, it grabbed her arm and chomped down on a chunk of her palm.

  Screaming in agony, she backed away clutching her injured, bleeding hand and knelt beside her partner. With her good hand, Erin pulled on Ryan’s arm, dragging him with her as best she could as she retreated from their adversary.

  The creature still pursued them with its awkward gait and reached them easily. It fell to its knees and grasped Ryan’s leg, leaning down to take a large bite out of his thigh. Erin sobbed, collapsing under the strain, and futilely kicked at the zombie with her feet.

  A nearby security officer, Jack MacConnell, ran out of the double doors of the Delta arrivals desk as fast as his sixty-five year-old body would allow.

  “Back the hell off!” he yelled in a heavy Scottish accent. From the look on his face, his white, bushy eyebrows furrowed in concern, it was clear he had never witnessed violence of this magnitude.

  The zombie continued to chew on the man’s thigh, horrible gurgling and slurping sounds accompanying the tearing of thin strips of skin.

  “What the bloody hell…” he whispered, frozen in shock.

  Without thinking, Jack broke into a run and headed towards the zombie. Within sec
onds, he reached it, wrapped his arms around its torso and tackled it to the ground.

  The creature writhed in his grasp with a strength that was unparalleled to anyone Jack had ever fought against before. He twisted away just before the zombie could sink its teeth into his shoulder, using his feet to propel him backwards as fast as possible.

  The zombie was crawling to him at a terrifying speed, like some kind of possessed human-insect. Only a couple of feet remained between the two of them. Jack reached into his holster and pulled out a Sig P226, aiming for the center mass of the monster. He pulled the trigger.

  The undead man fell, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned back and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then got to his feet and began to walk over to the two victims, talking into his radio as he walked.

  His relief was short-lived. Erin screamed as the zombie jerked forward suddenly, its face contorted into an expression that was even more inhuman than before.

  It rose to its feet mechanically, unaffected by the shot. If anything, it seemed to move faster with the promise of food so near. It shuffled towards Jack, its bloody teeth gnashing as it emitted a hungry growl.

  ***

  Erin watched the scuffle from where she sat in front of the Delta baggage counter. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. The officer had shot the crazed man. Shot him. And not with some little pellet gun either. In spite of this, he had gotten up as easily as if it had never happened.

  Her hand was on fire, but she tried to ignore it. She was more concerned about Ryan. The zombie had bitten a gash the size of a baseball out of Ryan’s leg. He was losing blood quickly in spite of her efforts to stem the flow. He had already passed out, his skin ashen.

  “Baby, I don’t know what to do,” she said softly, defeated.

  Erin hoped the officer could put the horrible monster down. In the distance, she heard the sirens of ambulances and police cars.

  ***

  The zombie plowed into Jack MacConnell like a freight train, catching him off guard. His gun went flying.

  Jack might have been older, but he was no wuss, and he sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight, gun or no gun. He kept the zombie on the ground with his forearm pressed firmly over its chest. The zombie snarled and hissed, eyes wide and translucent, continuously chomping down its teeth in anticipation. Although unable to reach Jack’s face, it continued to lean forward and snap at the air between them.

  How is it that I bloody shot him, and he’s not even in pain? Jack thought. What kind of drugs are people using these days?

  Raising his fist, Jack landed a solid punch on his target’s head. However, the creature’s skin, while no longer damp with sweat, was slick with Ryan and Erin’s blood. After making contact with the side of its face, Jack’s fist slipped and slid towards the zombie’s open jaws. His knuckles scraped across the monster’s viscera-stained bottom teeth. Jack watched in horror as the skin peeled and curled off of his outer hand and fell onto the ghoul’s slimy dark tongue. It eagerly swallowed the slivers of flesh, eyeing him wildly. He yanked his hand back before the monster was able to bite down.

  “Guys, a little help would be fantastic!” Jack yelled over his radio.

  One of the younger officers, Mike Holst, who had watched from the automatic sliding doors as the zombie took a bullet to the chest and rose as though unscathed, shook off his fear and ran over to his fallen comrade, landing on the ground near the creature’s head. Keeping his hand pressed down on the monster’s shoulder, he dug out the radio from his belt and frantically called for back-up.

  The zombie took advantage of the distraction to bite down on Mike’s arm. He screamed in a mixture of pain and surprise and pulled his arm away, falling back into Jack who was struggling to keep the zombie on the ground.

  Behind them, bright lights flashed as several emergency vehicles pulled up to the scene. Paramedics burst from the doors with stretchers and rushed to Erin and Ryan. A half-dozen police officers exited their vehicles and immediately began pushing the crowd back.

  “Get out of the way! Make room!” some of the officers yelled to the crowds.

  One of the bystanders, a middle-aged woman, ran over to the policemen.

  “You’ve got to help him! That man…” she exclaimed, her voice high with tension as she pointed to the zombie, “…he bit him. He tore him apart!”

  One of the officers, Brian Lucas, gently pushed her back away from the crime scene. “Okay, ma’am. Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”

  She nodded nervously, biting her fingernails and watching the chaos with wide eyes.

  Officer Lucas ran over to Jack and Mike, pulling out handcuffs and helping the men roll the zombie onto its stomach. “What the hell is going on here? This is insane.” He dug his knee into its back and cuffed the zombie gruffly.

  Jack grunted. “You’re telling me. They don’t pay me enough for this.” He shook his head. “Our friend here decided to make a meal out of that guy and his girlfriend over there. I was lucky enough to come out and see him chewing on the man’s leg like it was a dog bone.”

  He and Officer Lucas pulled the creature to its feet, simultaneously making sure to stay away from the zombie’s snapping teeth.

  Mike stood and immediately tore off his jacket to survey the damage and breathed a sigh of relief as he realized no skin was missing. In spite of the heavy uniform jacket, however, its strong, hungry jaws had broken skin. He stared at the puffy red teeth marks and droplets of blood, but immediately felt luckier than the poor guy who was now missing the lower half of his face and large chunks of his thigh. The young man looked as though he had been the victim of a gruesome shark attack.

  “He f’ing bit us, dude. You should have seen it. I’m lucky to still have all my parts. I mean, look at that guy. His lips are gone. He’s bleeding all over the sidewalk. What if he dies? I say we just shoot this bastard and be done with it,” he said angrily, looked disdainfully at the zombie. “Look at him. He’s hella dangerous.”

  Officer Lucas looked at the younger man sternly. “He’s messed up, that’s for sure. But we don’t just kill a man for that.”

  “That’s real easy for you to say seeing as how you didn’t get bitten,” Mike protested angrily.

  The zombie moaned and struggled, shifting its ravenous gaze on each of the men and lunging at them unexpectedly with frightening speed.

  Officer Lucas jerked him roughly to his waiting Impala, taking care to avoid the zombie’s chomping jaws. He shoved it into the back, carelessly pushing its head through the open door and paused to survey the rest of the scene, noticing that the initial victim and his girlfriend had been placed into an ambulance. He turned his attention to the two security guards, Jack and Mike, who were being attended to by paramedics.

  “Good job, gentlemen. We’ll take it from here. Go home and get some rest,” he called out as he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the ignition. He pulled away from the chaos and headed towards the police department to process the demented prisoner.

  ***

  Mike shook his head and ran a hand over his short brown hair as a paramedic examined and cleaned his small wound. After giving his statement to a few officers, he was more than ready to go home.

  “Man, that was insane. I almost crapped myself when he bit me.”

  Jack nodded, but didn’t make eye contact. Another paramedic gently bandaged his injured hand. “Something about him wasn’t right.”

  Mike scoffed. “Well, clearly.”

  The older man stared solemnly at the floor. “I have a bad feeling about all of this. Don’t know why. Just somethin’ in my gut.”

  A loud beeping noise shook both men from their brooding. Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

  “It’s my wife,” he said sheepishly. “She probably heard about this mess on the news.”

  Jack chuckled and stood up, flexing his bandaged knuckles. “Well, don’t just stand there and stare at it. Answer her, you big oaf. She
’s likely worried sick.” He added, “Thanks for the help, son. Without you, I would have ended up shredded beef.”

  Mike smiled and waved him off, walking back toward the airport.

  “Hey, Chels.” Mike sighed. “Yeah, it was crazy… What channel was it on?... I figured as much… Was I on TV?... Well, I had to help him; he’s, like, sixty… Yes, yes, I know… But he didn’t have a weapon… well, unless you count his teeth… How do you think I feel? Bastard bit me, for crying out loud!... Yeah, well, you didn’t see what happened to the other guy… Probably get there around seven-thirty for dinner… I just have to stop by the hospital and get a tetanus shot first… Maybe rabies, too… He sure looked possessed… Don’t worry. I’ll be home soon… Tell Tyler I love him… Love you, too.” He closed the phone and looked over his shoulder, catching sight of a dark stain on the road from where Ryan had been laying.

  He hoped the man would be okay. It sure didn’t look good.

  Mike wanted to pretend like this whole day had never happened.

  He just wanted to go home to his wife and baby.

  Besides, he sure was hungry.

  Chapter 3:

  Haven turned off the shower and stepped out onto the fluffy pink bath mat her sister, Faith, had picked out from Bed, Bath, and Beyond the week before. She wiped the steam from the mirror and paused to look at her reflection. She felt healthy and revived after a hearty meal, a good night’s rest, and an exhilarating work-out that evening consisting of sit-ups, push-ups, sprints, and a long run in preparation for her FBI fitness test down the road.

  The flight back had passed quickly. Haven had slipped into a restless slumber, only to jolt awake from a horrible nightmare just as the wheels touched the runway in Columbus. Her grandmother had picked her up with Faith, and after over an hour in the car driving through the quiet countryside, Haven had arrived home.

  She padded into the room that she and Faith shared. Her sister lay on the bed, listening to her iPod and thumbing through pages of her textbook for her English II class at the local community college. Faith had opted to live at home and stay with her grandmother while Brett and Haven had chosen to attend universities further away.