Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  “The rags are camouflage for the zombies,” she explained. “In the dark, they make me look like one of them.”

  “Oh.”

  “We should get out of here while we can. They’re…most of them are, uh, occupied.”

  His eyes dropped and right away she felt grief welling up out of him. As bad as the grief was, it wasn’t just tinged with guilt, it was drowning in it. That was his mother trapped by the mob. Maddy hesitated, not knowing what to say, not knowing if there was anything she could say that would help. “Maybe we could do something for her,” she told him even though the only sane thing was to get out of there as fast as they could. Her guilt had made the pronouncement.

  He didn’t question how Maddy knew about his mom. His mind was filled with images of her screaming, pushing him along through the dark maze of machines, and his heart was breaking as only a suddenly abandoned child’s can. “She was scratched,” he swallowed, thickly, “and got bit.”

  “Then you know what that means?”

  His head jerked up and down. He knew what that meant. He knew exactly what was happening to her. “I did this,” he admitted in a choked whisper. “It’s all my fault.”

  “It isn’t,” Maddy replied. She held out a hand. “Come on. We have to go. Our window of opportunity won’t stay open much longer.” The right thing and the logical thing was to save the boy at the expense of the mom.

  “My mom will come after us when she turns,” he declared, still without fear. “She’ll eat us. We have to go.” Straight away he opened the door and walked out into the hall. Maddy followed with her heart in her throat. The boy was shellshocked and not thinking clearly, still he was heading in the right direction and not shying back. At the intersection he stopped and stared at the shadowy backs of the zombies. He could not have seen much, but there was no telling how acute his hearing was; his mom had begun to moan in pain.

  “We have to go,” Maddy whispered, reaching for the boy’s coat. His hearing was better than fine. Her whisper had been only slightly louder than a breath and yet he turned, blinking away tears.

  His name was Billy Thomas and he had only just celebrated his tenth birthday a few days before. It had been lavish, as far as children understood things. There had been a rented room, a bounce house and enough cake to stuff his entire fourth grade class. He had received plenty of gifts, too many according to his mother, but one stood out…a secret one.

  Billy’s half-brother had slipped him a first-person shooter: Zombie Wars. He had been hooked enough to blow off his studies and when he failed his next test and had his gaming privileges suspended, he had gone beyond wishing for a zombie apocalypse, he had prayed for one. And here he was three days later, a mass murderer.

  Chapter 5

  “My fault,” he muttered, thinking Maddy couldn’t hear him. His guilt was an anchor and made her own seem like self-pitying crap in comparison. Louder, he shocked her, saying, “Don’t be afraid. We can get out this way.” To her amazement, he started walking straight through the warehouse without looking left or right. She had to hurry to catch up.

  “I’ll go first,” she told him, holding up the ice axe so that what little light there was gleamed off it.

  He was empty-handed and eyed the axe jealously. It was a perfect size for someone as small as he was. “Maybe I should carry that. I am a boy.” He stated this as if that alone should clear up any misunderstanding over who should have the axe.

  “A small boy,” Maddy replied. “Now hush. They’re close.” The pair was nearing the broken doors and Maddy could hear shuffling feet not far away. She slunk along the wall with Billy so close he could and did grab the edge of one of her rags.

  One of the dead, a roly-poly male of about seventeen stood hunched in on himself. He was shaped very much like a grey egg with spindly legs. Unfortunately, he was naked; his pants were bound around his ankles, held there by work boots whose laces were well knotted. Beyond him the lane was clear. The situation was just about the best Maddy could hope for.

  She knelt and looked long and hard at Billy. He was frail, his face white as milk, and clearly emotionally damaged, but there was no quit in him. There was a growing fear, however. The dark city seemed to teem with moans and screams, and the smell was rancid and would only grow more so when the sun hit the bodies stretched out in the gutters. He needed action to clear his head, to set him straight.

  “We’ll zip around him and then take a left about ten rows up. There’ll be a gate. Get through it, and if I’m not right with you, find a spot behind a car or something. If I don’t come out at all, head southwest to the Federal Building. The FBI is there.”

  His face clouded over at the thought of the FBI, his guilt just below the surface. Still, he nodded with only a single dart of his eyes at the ice axe.

  Maddy stood, drew in a long breath and charged from cover. Her boots, the left an Ugg and the right a grey one of an entirely different style, thudded softly as she ran at the creature, her steps quick and light. The zombie had no idea of her approach. It did hear Billy, however. His boots were new and stiff; they made a clumping noise as he ran. And his coat had a polyester shell that zzzwipped as he pumped his arms. And his breath ran high in his throat and as it did, a slight, frightened whine escaped with each exhalation.

  The zombie gradually understood something was to its left and it turned, slowly due to the restraints around its ankles. Maddy plowed into him, smashing him with a forearm to the side of the head. He went right over and rolled on the ground, growling and snapping his teeth as the two ran past. By the time he got his conjoined legs under him, Maddy was leading the boy to the left towards the main gate.

  As soon as they took the left, things grew hairy. A hideous, faceless creature suddenly roared around a cage. Although it didn’t appear to have either eye left in what remained of its head, it came right for them.

  In the narrow confines, Maddy’s options were limited to killing it quickly before it could let out a bestial screams and alert the others within the walls of the substation. Fearlessly, she charged and quickly discovered that long arms made up for the lack of eyes. She had been caught up, almost hypnotized by the ruin of its face, and hadn’t realized just how tall the thing was…how tall she was. It was a female Maddy saw just before she swung her axe.

  But the creature had its arms out, reaching for her and Maddy felt acutely stubby as she missed completely with the axe. Its curved head swished an inch from the bloody mess of the thing’s face. And then Maddy was falling back into one of the cages. Billy hadn’t seen the zombie until it was too late and made the mistake of trying to hide behind Maddy. The moment he did, he realized everything was going to crap and he tried ducking under her as she was thrown back. Maddy fell over him with the zombie piling on top, pinning her.

  There were arms and hands scrabbling everywhere. And teeth as well. The zombie might have been faceless, without cheeks or lips, but it had a fine set of white teeth set amidst the horror. These flashed in at Maddy, who had seen them coming in her mind a second before. Not that this had taken ESP. Zombies were, for the most part, one trick ponies, and Maddy managed to jab the hammer end of her ice axe into its mouth.

  It bit down hard and the sound of teeth cracking on metal was sickening. After a second of grinding its teeth on the hammer end, the zombie realized it was not eating human flesh and reached up to remove the tool.

  Maddy had seen this moment coming and attacked the lone arm holding her down. She punched the crook of the elbow, causing the zombie to collapse on top of her. In the next second, Maddy shot her hips to the left, pulled with her right hand on the creature’s hair while pushing up with her left on its shoulder. In a flash, their positions were reversed and now Maddy was on top. The move was so smooth that it looked choreographed.

  Billy had dragged himself from the scrum and was now set to run away. With her second-sight, she saw him leave her, his boots flying. What she hadn’t foreseen was the sharp pain of disappointment his leaving e
voked within her breast. “What the hell,” she growled, reaching for the axe which the zombie had spat out. “I just saved you!”

  Either he hadn’t heard her or he didn’t care, and he was gone, around a corner a second later.

  “Where’s the gratitude,” she muttered, snatching up the axe and burying it three inches deep, smack dab in the center of the zombie’s head. It was a perfect strike but right away, she knew something was wrong. She knew it and yet, she refused to believe it. The zombie hadn’t died.

  She had a good hold of the axe’s handle and was about to yank it up, when the zombie’s eyes opened. It turned out that she had a set after all. They had been hidden beneath a flap of skin that had scabbed over creating a sickening eyepatch. At first, the eyes were going in two separate directions, but then they swiveled up to stare at Maddy. The creature seemed to have forgotten its terrific rage. Its features softened and it opened its mouth as if it were going to ask her a question.

  “Hello?” Maddy said, whispering, trying to look into either of the oddly focused eyes, thinking that the buried axe had somehow found or tapped into the thing’s lost humanity.

  That was a pipe dream, which ended when it shot a hand up and grabbed her by the throat. Before it could tear open her flesh, she slapped her hand on its grey one and peeled back its fingers. It tried to get at her with its other hand. She leapt to her feet and just in time, too as another pair of zombies came stumbling from behind one of the cages.

  She was unarmed and should’ve been feeling at least some fear. Instead, she was cranky. The boy had simply up and left her, which was intolerably rude. And the first zombie was even more so. It refused to die even though it had an axe sticking out of its head! She took her anger out on the two incoming zombies.

  The first she dropped with a sweeping kick aimed at its left knee. This was a kick she had practiced precisely zero times and yet it felt completely natural as the lower part of her shin struck it squarely on the side of the knee. A fraction of a second before her shin struck she had worried that it would hurt or be jarring. It wasn’t at all. In fact, it felt good. It felt right.

  Down it went, tripping the second as it came on. A grey hand shot out and would’ve closed on her ankle if she hadn’t jumped back out of reach.

  Behind you, a voice whispered. Even as she spun, she realized that it had been her own voice speaking to her. She faced the big zombie sporting her axe like it was a unicorn’s horn. It staggered and lurched worse than any zombie she had yet seen. Regardless, it was dangerously strong and if it could snatch her with its long grip, Maddy would be in trouble.

  Maddy felt her body shift beneath her. Her feet did a little hinky step and it was a shock to realize that she was about to throw another kick. Her eyes centered on the handle of the axe. The embedded spike was probably keeping blood vessels from exploding and drowning the thing’s brain. It wouldn’t take much to jar the metal to the side or dig it in deeper or send it flying. All she had to do was risk everything by stretching completely out with a pinpoint head kick.

  Is that all? The thought betrayed her feelings and just as her right leg settled back, gathering itself, preparing to explode up and out, her left foot took a tiny, hesitant step back, ruining the moment. I’m not there yet, she decided.

  Liar!

  The voice was both right and wrong. Her body was ready—maybe. Her mind was not. She still saw herself as a chubby, couch-ridden non-athlete. Yes, she was slimmer and quicker, but she wasn’t exactly strong the way things were measured now. There were no weight classes in these battles and no one, least of all the zombies, gave a fig about her sex. This fight wasn’t even survival of the fittest. It felt as though it was survival of the luckiest and she didn’t feel all that lucky with the odds against her three to one. And if she didn’t end this quickly, it would be thirty to one in seconds.

  The long, long arms reaching for her face ended her internal workings, which was a good thing. Her mind was getting in the way of her fighting. Her body took over. On its own, that body, now slimmer, faster and stronger, would’ve been no match for the zombie. Its arms were too long, the space around Maddy too cramped. Thankfully, she saw the diseased claws coming at her like no human could. They appeared to be moving in slow motion as time struggled to catch up with Maddy’s precognition.

  Comparatively, her hand moved in a blur as she clamped onto the zombie’s wrist just as she slammed a fist into the thing’s outstretched elbow. With a crack, the bone broke, sending shards out through the crook. The zombie didn’t notice. It tried to grab her with its other hand, which Maddy saw coming long before it even twitched.

  Batting it aside, she found her body moving…no flowing like water. Her feet danced a quick two-step before her right knee came up and in. It sucked up to her chest before lashing out in a rib-cracking side kick, sending the beast back.

  She was moving, spinning, dodging to the side as an entirely new zombie came charging at her. In the time it took to blink, she appraised the creature: the human it had been was somewhere beyond sixty with a pudge of a belly and gleaming dome of a head.

  Aging gym teacher, she thought, as she dropped away to her left, letting it fly by. It struck the cage and was just rebounding when she crashed her fist into the base of its neck. Had it been an aging music teacher instead, the blow would’ve snapped vertebrae and paralyzed it. The zombie gave a weird twitch but was otherwise still deadly. Maddy felt it shift towards her and she pivoted with it using its gathering momentum to sling it back around so that it went face first into one of the metal poles holding the cage erect.

  Chuuung!

  It was a satisfying sound. The cage shimmied, bone cracked and blood spurted. The zombie’s legs went out from under it and it sprawled, its eyes spinning. Somehow it wasn’t dead. None of them were. She had been kung-fu-ing the crap out of the beasts and they were still coming!

  She saw more heading her way, drawn by the growls and crashes. “I need my axe.” It would make the difference. It would turn the tide. Maddy turned to the long-armed zombie and was about to charge when the ex-gym teacher snapped at her leg like a Doberman at the end of its leash. It missed by an inch, just as she had foreseen, and yet, the part of her mind that was still clinging to the past kicked on long enough for her to jump away in fright.

  And now the long-armed zombie was charging, and at the same time so were the two that had tumbled over each other. And a small one was also racing in, silent but unnervingly fast. It amazed her how seconds and even fraction of seconds took on such great importance in a fight. Life could turn to death in a blink of an eye.

  That was exactly how long it took her to realize she would have to abandon the axe and flee upward if she wanted to live.

  Climbing the cage was a simple thing now that she had felt the links and knew the dangers. She leapt upward, her arms crooked, her fingers hooking into the links. Up she went, quickly pulling herself out of reach as three zombies crashed into the cage beneath her. The fourth, the small one did not. It skidded to a stop just behind the others.

  Now that she had a moment to take a breath, she saw that it wasn’t a zombie at all. It was ten-year-old Billy Thomas.

  Chapter 6

  Billy hadn’t run away to save himself, he had run to find something he could use to save Maddy.

  He had made the mistake of letting his mother risk everything for him. For the last few days, while she had fought and scrounged and kept them both alive, he had done nothing but act like a baby. He had clung to her like an infant. He had cried when the power went out. He had nearly wet himself when they saw their first zombie up close, and he had allowed her to sacrifice herself for him. Renee Thomas was turning into a zombie right at that moment because of him, because he had been weak.

  Her last words to him had been: “Be brave.”

  This was Billy being brave. He had dashed through the maze, and luck had been with him. Within seconds, he had found a heavy chain hanging from an open cage door; it had a fist-s
ized padlock snapped shut on one end. The instant he hefted the chain there was no doubt in his mind that it would do a great deal of damage. He just had to connect first, something he had all the confidence in the world of being able to do. After all, his little league coach had called him a natural with a baseball bat in hand.

  The chain and lock was not nearly as simple as swinging a bat. All the weight, as well as all the deadly force, resided in a metal knuckle at the end of the chain. If the blow landed anywhere but the lock, it would be a waste—as he found out with his first swing.

  The closest of the zombies was barely standing as it had one leg turned inside out or so it seemed to Billy. Still, it was a dangerous monster and, like the others, had to be killed if “the Lady”, as Billy thought of Maddy, had any chance to live. With determination setting his features into sharp angles, he took the three-foot long chain in both hands and swung less like a bat and more like a hammer with a rubber handle.

  He did not miss, exactly. The chain near the end rapped smartly right across the thing’s head, while the weighted end curled over and crushed its nose, turning it into a lopsided bloody smear. The chain then leapt back and wiggled in the air as it came at Billy, almost like a live snake. He ended up jumping away from the lock end as it swung at his face. Unlike a bat that could be swung again a second later, the chain had to be corralled and its momentum returned to a neutral state, first.

  It made him realize the chain was a terrible weapon, but it was too late to try and find another. The Lady had stopped midway up the cage and was staring back at him in frank surprise.

  Luckily, the zombies were oblivious to Billy, even the one with the squashed nose, and he was able to line up another swing. His aim had to be perfect. Up and around, the boy brought the chain, gathering speed in the last second, sacrificing some power for accuracy. He was a natural. His hand eye coordination was a thing of beauty. The lock whistled straight at the crown of the creature’s head and dented it—and that’s all it did.