The Week of the Dead

by Viktor Longfellow

  She calmly pressed the elevator button again. When the elevator chimed, a bloody face planted itself against the glass on the outside of the lobby doors. She paid it no attention as she let the elevator doors closed. The fourth-floor button was illuminated by her fingers.

  Danny had patched his wounds up. The wounds weren’t too deep. He applied some Tegaderm dressings and pulled his shirt back down. He went to the kitchen and made him something to eat. As he chewed on his sandwich, he kept thinking about that punk-ass kid stabbing him. Danny threw his sandwich on the counter and went into the bedroom. He lifted the side of his mattress and produced a handgun. He checked the action and made his way out the door.

  Danny went to Kyle’s apartment door. “Kyle! You in there buddy? I want to talk to you.” There wasn’t any answer from the other side of the door. “I’m not mad, little man. I just want to talk.” Again, there was no response. Danny looked at both ends of the empty hall. He reared back and kicked the door in with one kick. The apartment was dark. Danny flicked on the lights. He saw two bodies in the kitchen. They stirred upon the sound of the door being kicked in. Danny raised his pistol and put four rounds into them.

  Danny kicked open the next bedroom door. It was Kyle’s, but no one was there. He even checked under the bed. He walked through the little hall and found another closed door. He kicked it open as well. What was on the other side of the door surprised him. It was dark, but he could make out the silhouette of Kyle leaning over something. He held his little knife straight down, letting the blood drip onto something. “There, there.” Kyle’s little voice spoke.

  “I’m going to take care of you now.” Danny inched forward. Unless Kyle was in some sort of trance, he should have been aware of Danny kicking in the door. Danny extended his arm and fired one round into the back of Kyle’s head. The little human body drooped over the thing he was leaning against.

  Danny turned to walk away when he heard a high-pitched moan coming from Kyle’s body. He turned again and fired another round into the corpse that wasn’t moving. Danny turned on the ceiling light to display the bright purple and pink walls. There was Fisher-Price stuff everywhere along with stuffed animals. “Oh shit!” Danny said as he walked toward Kyle’s body. He grabbed the boy by the ankle and pulled him off the piece of furniture, which turned out to be a manger. Danny rubbed his hands over his short hair when he saw what was in the manger. In the manger was a tiny body that was still moving. Its pale skin and naturally bald head reflected the light above it. Danny saw where Kyle had been dropping drips of blood into and around its mouth. “Fuck this!” Danny said as he raised the pistol and fired. The impact from the handgun was enough to blow the infant’s head clean off.

  Danny grabbed anything he thought might be useful or valuable. He picked up the empty casings he dispensed. He calmly closed the door. He went back to his apartment. He threw arm loads of stuff onto the counter. He went to pick up his sandwich that he had left. Only it wasn’t there. He stared at the blank counter that held a few pieces of bread crumbs and what looked like pickle juice. His blank stare ended when he felt something warm trickle down his back. He reached back to see red blood on his fingertips. “I faked it,” a female voice said. Danny turned around to see Tricia standing there with a pair of scissors dripping blood onto his kitchen floor. Danny went to pull his pistol out, but it was kicked free by Tricia’s Muay Thai skills. She brought the scissors down into his neck. Danny dropped to the floor. Tricia kicked him over, and blood began to pool around him. She grabbed what looked like his gym bag and began packing food and clothes. She grabbed the pistol and began rummaging through his apartment.

  BASE

  CHAPTER 38

  TUESDAY 0400

  FORT KNOX

  Phil’s Chinook helicopter landed at Fort Knox. The first thing they saw were the fences and military personnel stationed everywhere. “Sleeping quarters are to the left. Food to the right!” he heard over the helicopter blades’ twirling. The band quickly exited the helicopter ramp and away from all the noise. “All here?” Harrison asked as he looked around. He touched Mia’s shoulder and saw the back of Phil’s head as Paul bounced in front of him. The helicopter lifted off again. As they were exiting, Paul saw them refueling the helicopters as they were unloading. The pilot stepped out of the helicopter to urinate openly on the landing pad.

  Phil looked at the civilians. Their cold dark faces. They had the wits scared out of them. They were cowering, shielding their faces from the light, the darkness, and the sickness that was circling around them. There weren’t enough antibiotics to go around. With the mass amounts of people coming into the fort, they didn’t have ample supplies for such a massive influx of survivors. Phil walked through the camp looking at the sick and deathly ill. This was sickness of the old world, the way people used to die. Flu, asthma, cancer, dysentery, and even a paper cut was now a death sentence. Phil watched as some people’s skin had become jaundice yellow from lack of access to dialysis machines. They were slowly decaying from sicknesses that weren’t treatable anymore, not in the new world—the world where the dead returned to life.

  ROOFTOP ACCESS

  CHAPTER 39

  WEDNESDAY 0300

  ST. LOUIS

  Tricia slept at Danny’s place. She felt weird sleeping in a bed when there was a dead body on the other side of the door. In the middle of the night, the bedroom was filled with a white light. She heard the whirling sounds of a helicopter. She heard someone speaking over the intercom, but she couldn’t make it out. She jumped up and threw the gym bag around her shoulder. She stepped over Danny’s dead body. She spit on him as she walked out the door and made her way to the staircase. There, she was met with a group of humans. They also heard the sounds of the helicopter. They were making their way to the roof. She followed suit. She ran up the staircase all the way to the fifteenth floor. There, the staircase was filling with the sound of wind gushing, helicopter blades, and the ensuing stampede.

  When Tricia made it through the door, she was instantly terrified. There was a massive helicopter landed, and six soldiers were in full tactical gear. It made Tricia felt inadequate with Danny’s pistol stuffed in her yoga pants. She took a seat on the helicopter. She watched as more people began to fill the helicopter. The soldiers quickly began backing up. There was a popping sound coming from the doorway. It was barely audible over the sound of the helicopter.

  The soldiers backed on to the helicopter. Through the doorway came a man. He was firing blindly behind him as he ran toward the helicopter. As the helicopter lifted off the ground, the man jumped in, and his face landed not far from Tricia’s foot. The man grabbed Tricia’s foot as he tried to pull himself up to his feet. Tricia uncoordinatedly drew her pistol. It was knocked loose by the man. “I ain’t dead yet!” the man said grumpily.

  DARKNESS

  CHAPTER 40

  TUESDAY 2300 CST

  MILLINGTON

  Jamison slept soundly on the floor in the basement. He had finally had a moment of peaceful sleep only to have it disturbed by Daniels. “Your turn,” Daniels said as he lightly tapped the boots of Jamison.

  “My turn already?”

  “Aye, sir. It’s been three hours,” Daniels said as he exchanged places with Jamison, who grabbed his rifle. They were taking shifts on watch. Jamison quietly made his way through the farmhouse, trying to make as little noise as possible in his military gear. He was tired, but he had a job to do. Someone had to keep a lookout while everyone slept. He made it to the front porch. He could see the radio towers blinking in the distance. Serene, he thought as he found a stool and placed his body upon it. The porch was illuminated by a light on a pole. The illumination spread from the pole and covered the makeshift motor pool, the porch, and a few feet of the gravel pathway that lead to the farm house. Beside the stool was another stool. Someone had left a pack of cigarettes and most of a bottle of soda. Jamison sipped on the soda and lit himself a cigarette. “Shitty days call for meek rewards,” he to
ld himself.

  As he drew on the cigarette, he noticed how calm and tranquil the country was. He felt the wind blowing. He heard the frogs croaking. He saw an endless view of darkness. He finished his cigarette and flicked it off the side of the porch. “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

  Jamison startled to his feet. “Who the fuck is there?” he said, waving his firearm in the direction of the wind blowing.

  “Friendly. Friendly,” the voice said.

  “Bullshit. Show yourself!” Devin raised his head from the roof of the transport truck.

  “Don’t shoot me.”

  Jamison lowered his weapon to see the familiar face. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  “I was sleeping until I heard Daniels leave. He knew I was out here.”

  “Fucking rat didn’t mention it.”

  Devin sat up and held his hands open in a catching motion. “Hey man, toss me that pack.” Jamison noticed tally marks on Devin’s arm. He counted the tally marks.

  “What is that? Did you get scratched?”

  “No, I want to keep count of my kills. Something I did when I was like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “I used to be a ranger.” Jamison threw the pack in Devin’s direction. The wind caught it and blew it to the back of the tarp on the transport truck. Devin stood on the roof and started to crawl over the support beams to the pack of cigarettes. He picked up the pack and showed it to Jamison and made his way back to the metal roof of the truck. “Where’s your girl?” Jamison asked. Devin held the lighter up to his cupped hands. He stopped. Something stirred in the distance. He lifted his head. “Psst,” Devin said as he quietly dropped to a prone position in the truck, trying not to let the metal buckle from his weight. Jamison had heard it too. He shouldered his weapon.

  He didn’t leave the porch. He was the only defense for the front door from the road. “What is it?” Jamison asked in a hushed tone.

  “Something is coming. Single, bipedal, sounds like it’s dragging something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sounds like metal.” All they could see was what the pole light would illuminate. The noise was coming from the way they had come that afternoon. There were no lights, no voices, only two shoes walking across the asphalt. One shoe and then the other followed by the sound of metal dragging across the rough road with every step. As it got closer, there was a new sound. It was the jingling of a chain with every advancing pace. Devin and Jamison watched from their positions as the sound made it appear closer to the farmhouse. Devin stuck his head in through the window and grabbed a shotgun from the cab of the truck. He pointed the barrel in the direction. The frogs stopped croaking, and there was silence as the noise came closer to the light. Jamison switched his safety off.

  A shoed foot came into the light, followed by another shoed foot that had a leg shackle on its ankle. The shoes were matched with an orange jumpsuit with florescent stripes on it. “Convict,” Devin said silently.

  “Human?” Jamison asked.

  “Can’t tell.” The person in the orange jumpsuit was now passing in front of the house.

  “Stay hidden. Even if he is human, he’s still a convict. Fuck ’em,” Jamison said. There was a sneeze heard from inside the house. Jamison and Devin both met eyes as they turned back toward the convict. It had stopped in the road and turned toward the house. It shambled its way toward the light pole.

  “He’s not human,” Devin said from the truck.

  “I’ll take him,” Jamison said as he walked to the front of the truck. He saw the convict shamble toward him. His pupils glistened against the soft light. Jamison raised his rifle to his face and let out a single round. When Devin’s ears stopped ringing, he saw the convict was face down on the ground. There was motion in the house as those who had heard the shot came to see. As Jamison and Devin went to check the body, they heard something. Something they had never heard before.

  A harmony of sounds could be heard in the distance. The sound everyone had experienced in the last forty-eight hours. The sound of something hungry, only it wasn’t just one, it was many. Jamison had just rung the dinner bell.

  DADDY ISSUES

  CHAPTER 41

  TUESDAY 2300

  MEMPHIS

  “Well, holy shit, sir!” General Bartlett said as he extended an open hand to Richard. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Navy SEALs, 1987,” he said as he took the general’s hand. “Sorry about that. He was being a little piss ant, and he deserved that ass beating.”

  “Yes, sir, everyone is a little tense after what happened.”

  “Man to man, what the hell is happening, general?”

  “The world has gone to shit, and we’re trying to save as many people as we can.”

  “Total domination?”

  “Not yet. The AO is still too populated. Pockets of resistance.”

  “Where’s POTUS in all this?”

  “Aboard Air Force One currently.”

  “A lot of fuckin’ good that’s doing us.”

  “Agreed. How did you come by this vital information?”

  Ethan, Josh, and the rest of them were watching this exchange of small short sentences until Richard pointed at Josh. “That one.”

  General Bartlett turned to Josh. “Where did you find this?”

  Josh exchanged a glance at Ethan who shook his head. “The Internet, sir,” Josh responded politely. “So you just searched ‘Crazy man,’ and this is what came up?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Josh said as he folded his arms.

  “Right. Well, good job, son. If you’ll excuse us, we’re trying to save the world here,” Bartlett said as he went back toward the tent.

  “Here’s a thought,” Richard said as he pulled aside and spoke quietly.

  “I don’t know if that will work. Think about the casualties.” Bartlett was heard. Richard whispered something again. “I’ll pass it along.” The general saluted the retired colonel and disappeared back in the tent.

  “Come along,” Richard said.

  Junior placed his knife back in its holster and helped the remaining conscious soldier to his feet. “Sorry ’bout that,” Junior said as he handed him back his rifle. He left to catch up with his father who was walking back to the campfire with Ethan and Josh. “What was that about, Daddy?”

  Richard let out a sigh as he took a seat. “Remember when I told you I was in the navy and I left every now and again to fight the bad guys?”

  “Yeah,” Junior replied as he stared intently at his father.

  “Well, I did a lot more than that. The Cold War was happening. We were at war with the Communists. My job was to make sure we could retaliate against the Soviet Union if we were ever attacked.”

  “Uh-huh…,” Junior said waiting for his father to continue.

  “We had backup plans for the back up plans.”

  “I thought you were at training?” Junior asked.

  “We were. Since nothing happened in the war, I wanted you to live the American dream. I didn’t want you to know what we did,” he said as he looked his son’s blank face.

  “What exactly did you do?”

  A NEW EVIL

  CHAPTER 42

  TUESDAY 2310

  MILLINGTON

  “Everyone! Get up! Pack your shit! We’re leaving!” Devin shouted as he moved through the house clapping his hands vigorously. “Get your shit! Go to the vehicles!” he said as he rounded the corner to the next room.

  “There’s a group of those things coming this way! Get dressed!” Erica spoke over the people rummaging their belongings. Jamison, Daniels, and Walker were in the middle of the road. They could only see a few yards in front of them from the pole light.

  Their attention turned to the people pouring out the front door and making their way to the vehicles. One engine fired up. The driver flipped the headlights on. Jamison was the first to notice. He raised his rifle along with Walker. They began firing wildly
into the procession of oncoming bodies shuffling their way toward the farmhouse. “Daniels! We need something more!” Jamison said as he saw the bullets having little effect on the group.

  “On it!” Daniels handed his weapon to Walker and marched to the transport truck and began blindly pillaging until he found what he was looking for. “This’ll do,” he said as he heaved the .50 caliber to the tailgate. He attempted to pull it to the ground using the preinstalled tripod. As rounds were being fired, Daniels pulled the first foot off. The weight of the machine gun weighted heavily upon his chest as he attempted to bring the weapon down. He pulled with all of his might. “I need another mag!” he heard Jamison shout in between rounds being fired.

  Suddenly, the weight of the gun was lifted off his chest. “Really?” Devin said as he held the other side of the machine gun. The two men hoisted the weapon in front of the vehicles as Jamison and Walker had made room for them. “Mount up! Stay behind us!” he shouted. “Ready to go! Walker said as he tapped Daniels on the head signaling the weapon was ready. He pulled the action back and opened fire. The others took cover as Daniels sprayed left to right and back again with the .50 caliber machine gun. It sounded like a thunderstorm next to their faces. Daniels mowed down as many as he could see. After the bodies had piled up, Daniels looked over the sights of the machine gun. Daniels saw what he cut down. Most didn’t get back up; some were cut in half trying to crawl toward their next meal.