Remains of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  “Ah shit!” Cahz shouted.

  The benches hit the floor with a clatter and Cahz pulled his carbine up to fire. The zombie seemed oblivious to the noise and threw itself at the child. It was on the child before Cahz could fire. The two merged and he lost his clear target. With no time before the creature bit down, Cahz pulled the trigger.

  The zombie toppled over onto the floor. The child screamed.

  Cahz vaulted over the toppled benches and kicked the neutralized zombie away from the child. He bent down and scooped up the crying baby. Her cheeks were puffed out red as she screamed in discomfort. Cahz gently placed his hand on the child’s forehead, his breath forced to a fearful stop. The baby was tiny, his cupped hand covering her whole head. The skin was burning hot, flushed with blood from screaming. He drew his hand over the child’s hair, ruffling her short silky curls as he felt for any wet patches.

  With a puff of relief, Cahz let out his stifled breath. There was no bite, no spray of contagion. Again the baby had escaped infection.

  “There, there,” Cahz said, bouncing the baby. “There, there.”

  “Cahz!” Ryan cried out as he ran into the room.

  “Ryan?” Cahz squeaked back in a surprised, high-pitched tone.

  Ryan stopped just short of the incapacitated zombie. “The choppers back!” he gasped before he had time to take in the scene. He saw the inert zombie sprawled across the floor and caught the look of panic in Cahz’s eyes. “What the fuck happened?” he asked as he practically pulled Rebecca to his chest.

  “It’s all okay,” Cahz said in a calming tone. “I took the W.D. out before he got to her. She’s fine—just a little freaked.”

  Ryan held the child out at arm’s length and examined her. In a childish voice he comforted the girl.

  “You said the choppers here?” Cahz asked.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, but they’ve broken through the fence. The field is full of pus-bags.”

  “Christ!” Cahz sprang over the body and out towards the main door.

  * * *

  Cahz sprinted out of the front door with such speed that he ran straight past the first zombie. The retarded cadaver swung round to grab at him, but Cahz was too swift. In the exigency to grab its prey, the zombie lost its balance and fell over.

  Ryan was right; the playing field was swamped with undead, and maybe a mile away in the rain-laden sky there shone the lights of an aircraft.

  “This is India Tango One, are you receiving?” Cahz shouted into his mic. “Are you receiving?”

  The cross of burning desks was still alight, but the flames were lacklustre, dampened by the rain.

  But there was still enough light to plainly see the dozens of zombies shambling towards him. Cahz fired his weapon, dispatching the approaching vanguard of undead.

  “India Tango One calling. We need immediate extraction. Do you copy?”

  The zombie Cahz had run past picked itself up. It stretched out its bone thin arms and lumbered after its kill.

  Cahz looked up at the black night sky. He could see the flashes of light from the chopper illuminating the undersides of the clouds. Taking in a deep breath he hit the toggle to send, “Idris, you son of bitch, look down!”

  The zombie edged up behind Cahz. It let its jaw drop and tried to let out an excited moan, but no sound emerged from its infection encrusted mouth. Maybe the fall or the rain or some other factor prevented it from moaning. It didn’t matter to the undead creature; it would still sink its teeth into the living flesh and gorge on its warm meat.

  Snarling, its teeth at the ready, the zombie stepped in for the attack.

  A shot rang out from behind him and Cahz whipped round just in time to see a zombie collapse at his feet. Ryan had emerged from the school building, the papoose strapped to his chest, pistol in hand.

  Cahz looked at Ryan, the muzzle still pointed at his face, and then down at the crumpled zombie.

  “Your aim is improving,” Cahz said, then turned round and looked back up at the sky. “Idris, this is Cahz. Come on, buddy, we really need a lift.”

  As Ryan drew up Cahz could hear the baby zipped up inside the bag, her howls of displeasure marginally stifled by the fabric.

  “What do we do?!” Ryan shouted above the child’s screams and the lashing rain.

  A swathe of zombies where shambling towards them, converging on their position.

  “Get closer to the breach,” Cahz said. “We’ve got to seal that back up before we run out of ammo.”

  “What about the chopper?”

  Cahz gave Ryan a solemn look. “If you can think of a way of signaling him, I’m all ears.”

  “The school!” Ryan yelped. “Torch the school!”

  Cahz slapped him on the shoulder. “It’s worth a try. Get to it. I’ll try to secure the area.”

  Cahz edged forward, shooting as he did. Within seconds his carbine gave a dreaded click. He flicked the catch and let the empty fall to the ground. He pulled a fresh magazine from its pouch and slapped it home. There was no time to retrieve the empty and since there was no more ammunition, there was no point.

  “This is India Tango One, situation is critical.” Cahz held firm as a fresh wave of zombies shuffled towards him, “I repeat, situation is critical. Request immediate evac. Please respond, over.”

  The zombies were just seconds from grabbing him, but Cahz waited, desperately wanting to hear his radio crackle into life.

  A dead hand pawed in front of his face. He batted the dead flesh away with his carbine and shot the zombie, muzzle pressed against its nose. The headless cadaver slumped to the ground, clearing Cahz’s aim for the next targets.

  The first dozen rounds cleared the immediate ground around him, then he pushed on, closing on his enemy. Out here in the drizzle with the rising moans of a thousand undead, it was easy to get overwhelmed. The faint fire light behind was illuminating just enough to see by.

  Squeezing the trigger, the hammer fall ended in silence. Another magazine depleted. Cahz let the empty slip free and grabbed the last of his rounds. Unceremoniously he loaded the weapon and aimed it at the horde.

  “This is never going to work,” he said as he lowered the M4.

  Between him and the breach there were still a good couple of dozen undead. Even if he took one with each round, by the time he’d done that another hundred would be through the gap.

  Cahz lowered his gun and charged into the mob of decaying flesh.

  He screamed a guttural, primordial cry that rivaled the moans of the amassed dead. He thumped into countless zombies, knocking the soggy lumps of dead flesh flying with his momentum. He was almost at the gap when his footing slipped on the muddy grass and he skidded head first towards the opening.

  The thick wet mud sprayed his face and flooded into his mouth. He coughed out the choking slurry as he scrambled to catch his footing. Before he could get up, a lump weight fell across his shoulder. Cahz tried to push himself up, but more eager zombies were piling on top. His fingers dug into the earth, his teeth gritted. He forced his muscles to push. Summoning every ounce of strength in his flesh, he burst out of the scrum, throwing cadavers off in all directions.

  Clambering on all fours, digging for traction in the chewed-up earth, Cahz threw himself at the upturned desk. Reaching what had now become a breakwater in the path of the undead, he slammed his back up hard against it. It was only a few feet from its original position blocking the hole, but Cahz knew this would be a Herculean task to get it back in place.

  Stamping his heels into the quagmire, he pushed his weight into the desk. The abused piece of school furniture slid a few inches then came to a jarring halt.

  Before Cahz could change his purchase a dead hand grabbed at him. At the end of the gnarled and decaying arm a petite little zombie hauled itself. Cahz stared into the vacant eyes of a dead child. No more than seven or eight when she’d turned, the little girl wore a shredded school uniform. Her black lips curled back, revealing missing teeth from her demonic gri
n.

  Cahz whipped out his pistol and shoved it straight into the child’s open mouth.

  “Chew on this,” Cahz heard himself quip as he pulled the trigger.

  The zombie’s head exploded, throwing shrapnel-like chunks of skull into the darkness.

  Pistol still in hand, Cahz braced his shoulders to the wooden surface and dug in. As he pushed again and again, the desk started to slide. It slithered a few inches in the mud before stopping firm. Another zombie came round the side and made a grab for him. Cahz kicked out at the undead’s kneecap. The bone snapped like rotten wood and the zombie fell to the ground. As it hit the mud Cahz dispatched it with a round to the head.

  Cahz’s eye was drawn back to the school as a lick of flame shot up inside one of the classrooms. The yellow beam of light shone like a beacon from the window.

  “Come on, Idris! You’ve got to see that!” Cahz barked, face upturned to the rain.

  Round the edge of the desk a pair of cadavers came at him. The first one he floored in an instant, the second he had to grapple with before his shot found its brain.

  “Come on, you dead fuck motherfuckers!” Cahz shouted as he threw his strength behind the desk again.

  A wave of half a dozen cadavers lumbered into arm’s length of him. He repeatedly fired his pistol, trying to keep the zombies at bay. Through the mob of undead he could see a second then a third classroom in quick succession burst into flames.

  A necrotic hand wrapped around his gun arm, pulling his aim off true. He wrestled the gun free and fired wildly at point-blank range.

  “India Tango One, we are setting signal fires at our location,” Cahz radioed as the pack of cadavers fell upon him. He strained to get out the last of his message, “West of your position.”

  The drone of the helicopter engine sounded closer now, even above the rain and moans.

  With the hope of rescue masking his fear, Cahz ignored the dead hands grasping for him. He changed his angle of attack on the desk and pushed hard.

  Over and over, he thrust his whole body at the desk, each time taking it a little further into the gap.

  A fresh zombie grabbed his arm and pounced. Cahz pulled the trigger, but the gun was spent. He tossed the empty pistol aside and pulled himself back away from the zombie’s jaws. A second zombie seized him from behind, throwing him off kilter.

  Cahz stumbled back, vigorously trying to shake off the ravenous dead. In only a few short steps he had a congregation of zombies all snatching at him.

  Feeling for the M4 on its sling, Cahz twisted and turned, desperately to escape the attackers. His fingers found the handle of the weapon. He tried to level it, but the dead were pressed too tightly around him now. He could feel teeth gnawing into his armour and he knew it wouldn’t be long before they found his flesh.

  Gasping against the choking stench of rot, Cahz tried unsuccessfully to break loose. Unable to get a clear shot, he started firing wildly, popping off shot after shot in a frantic attempt to loosen their hold. As the shots rang out, he bucked and twisted trying to break free, but for every zombie he dislodged another took its place.

  Cahz tripped in the melee and fell to the mud, a dozen voracious cadavers falling with him. As he hit the ground and took a face full of putrid slurry there was an electrical hiss through his earpiece.

  * * *

  The school was ablaze, fingers of flame stretching long into the night sky.

  And in the glow of the fires Ryan saw the knot of zombies on the ground a short distance from the defunct barricade. Although the gap in the fence was only wide enough to let one zombie in at a time, the mass of undead clambering to get in was terrifying. Every second, like some macabre spawning, a zombie would spew through the gap and stumble onto the playing field.

  Ryan ran up to the seething heap of bodies. Under the pile Cahz was screaming.

  “I’m coming!” Ryan hollered as he grabbed a cadaver.

  The force of Ryan’s pull ripped the rotten shirt off the zombie’s back, exposing the putrid flesh underneath. Unperturbed, Ryan leveled his pistol and shot the assailant through the head. He snatched a zombie out, rammed his gun into its head, and pulled the trigger.

  Ryan dug deeper into the pile of squirming, rotting meat, blasting away with his pistol as he did. Time and time he hauled out a zombie and blew its brains out, rummaging through the mess trying to find his partner.

  A gloved hand punched out from the corpses. Ryan grabbed hold and pulled.

  Cahz emerged from the clawing, biting boil of cadavers, dragging a squirming corpse with him. The raging creature was firmly tangled in the soldier’s armour. Ryan stuck the muzzle of his gun in its face and fired. Cahz battered and kicked furiously to dislodge the more determined undead.

  “Fuckin’ busy!” Ryan shouted as he fired.

  “Hold them off!” Cahz shouted. He called into his radio, “India Tango One, I know you’re there, Idris. Come on! We’re in deep shit, buddy!”

  Ryan’s gun barked and flashed as he shot at the dead. Even as inexperienced with a firearm as he was, it was proving impossible to miss at such short range.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan demanded to know.

  “I heard a crackle!” Cahz shouted over the gunshots and moans. “I heard a crackle over the radio.”

  “What’s that mean?” Ryan asked. “Has he seen us?”

  “It means he’s transmitting.”

  “He heard you?”

  “I don’t know—look,” Cahz pointed at the sky. “He’s not moving fast—he’s searching for us.”

  Ryan looked down at the backpack strapped to his chest. From inside Rebecca was screaming in terror.

  “It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s going to be okay,” Ryan promised the child, tears of his own tumbling down his face.

  “We have to close that gap,” Cahz said, pushing his back up to the desk.

  Ryan moved to help him push. “How? There’s thousands of them out there now.”

  “You cover me. I’ll push the desk back in place.” Cahz let his M4 drop in its sling.

  “You’re a better shot. I’ll push.”

  Cahz looked up at Ryan. “I’m out of ammo.”

  “Here.” Ryan passed over his gun and braced himself against the desk. Cahz took the pistol and stood clear. “Here.” Ryan held out a magazine. “That’s my last one.”

  Standing sentry over Ryan, Cahz took up his firing stance and started shooting. The knot of zombies around the breach were obliterated in seconds. Cahz turned to the fence and exhausted the remainder of the magazine trying to thin them out.

  It was futile. The weight of zombies was so massive that the ones he shot refused to fall, pinned to the fence by the pressure from behind.

  “Idris!” Cahz barked into the mic as he loaded the pistol for the last time. “Come on, Idris. We’re right next to the burning school. Look out your window!”

  Beside him, Ryan was huffing and grunting as he forced the desk into the mass of zombies. He had almost plugged the gap, but a mound of dead were wedged between the desk and the opening, effectively jamming it.

  Cahz holstered the pistol and set about clearing the space. He picked out the first inert cadaver and tossed it to one side. But as he cleared the ground another zombie pushed its way through the gap. He grabbed the scrawny bag of infected skin and bones and lobbed it back over the fence. As he turned to get back to his task another zombie pushed its head through the gap.

  Cahz tore the pistol from its holster and pointed it at the gnashing zombie. He held his fire. He looked down at the loaded pistol in his hand. For all it was worth, it was useless to him. The fifteen rounds it held would never be enough.

  “Ryan,” he said.

  Ryan looked up from his exertions.

  Cahz tossed the weapon to the young man. “You’ve got a full clip left,” he said before turning to the gap.

  He delved into one of his pouches and pulled out a hard, slightly curved metal object. There was a knot of wires
and duct tape strapped to the rear of the device. Cahz checked the modifications, reassuring himself that he could still use it without the jury-rigged timer.

  He wasn’t fearful. A strange calm had gripped him. He knew he had to clear the ground so Ryan could seal it.

  He sucked in a deep breath, girding himself for one more tremendous effort.

  As he barged into the mass of cold bodies, he could hear in crystal clarity their hungry moans, Ryan’s grunting, the crackle of flames, the pitter-patter from a myriad of raindrops. And somewhere in those rain-swollen clouds, the sound of rotor blades chopping through the moist air.

  Cahz felt the mud underfoot squelch as he powered forward. The solid metal body of his carbine bounced, suspended from its sling. The butt of the M4 was hooked under his forearm, the muzzle pointing at the sodden ground. With every awkward strength-sapping step in the slimy quagmire, he felt the barrel slap against his leg.

  Cahz grabbed a corpse that stood blocking the desk and hurled it out of the way. As he did a zombie grabbed for him through the fence. He ignored its grasping hands and dragged a second corpse free.

  The edge of the desk bashed against his shoulder as Ryan pushed it in. A few extra inches and the space would be blocked.

  Another dead hand reached out and grabbed him. They were still pushing through the gap.

  Cahz had to stop them. His legs ached all the way up to his backside, yet he had to muster every last iota of strength. Fighting against the resistance of the grasping hands, he pushed off against the desk and into the breach.

  Spread eagled, Cahz barred the zombie’s entrance to the playing fields. All around him were the men, women and children who had found no rest in their demise, wretched creatures tortured by a malodorous and corrupt immortality, possessed by an insatiable hunger for living flesh—his flesh.

  A multitude of dead hands clutched at his body; a crowd of rancid faces snarled and gnashed their shattered teeth with excitement. Their rain-soaked corpses were illuminated by flashes of light as they lunged in at him. The putrid breath of decay that escaped their rotting lungs as they moaned assaulted his nostrils and matched the rank taste festering in his mouth.