Running down past Omar and the Petersons, she joined Alex and Ethan, firing into the crowd that poured from the doorway.
Alex’s heart sank when he saw the slide of his pistol drop back, revealing the empty chamber. Two shots later, Ethan’s pistol did the same. Morgan pulled the trigger and heard the hammer on her pistol make a click noise.
Frank flashed an instantaneous look at the guns before leaping at the crowd of zombies. He screamed a guttural yell, throwing his arms out wide to grab onto both corpses that pushed through the door. Frank’s boots dug into the ground and he tried to throw the power of his legs into shoving the group of corpses back through the doorway.
The corpses grabbed onto Frank, opening their mouths wide before their teeth sunk into his arms. Blood dropped from the bites, as they slowly chewed the meat they tore from him.
“Push me!” Frank yelled in a strained voice back at the group, who stood in a horrified stun.
Alex broke free from his stare and ran forward, shoving Frank’s back. Ethan jumped down to join him. Soon Mr. Peterson and Morgan were behind them pushing as well.
Frank screamed in pain as the zombies kept biting at him. More and more blood fell from the gaping wounds. As the group finally managed to move the mass of zombies feasting on Frank, his head head fell back, his face white with blood loss. After he gave Frank one last shove out the doorway, Alex grabbed the metal door and slammed it shut, gasping for breath when the lock latched.
“Frank!” Morgan screamed.
Fists pounded against the doorways on all the second and first floor, echoing in the brick stairwell.
The radio cut into the pounding. “Okay Andrews… we’re outside the blast zone.”
“Copy that. Bravo-Two is also ready for detonation. Over.”
“Let’s see some fireworks.”
Everyone looked at each other, hoping someone else would tell them what to do. Their minds froze at the thought of Frank’s death and the impending attack that was about to explode. Too much adrenaline coursed through their veins.
“Get down on the floor!” Alex yelled, having no advice to give. “Cover your heads!”
The group sat in the rumble of fists on metal, broken only by the radio squealing when no one spoke. Morgan and Alex sat next to each other, staring into each other’s eyes. They held both hands, their fingers interlaced. They both squeezed so hard their hands screamed with pain. Yet, neither let go.
Emma whimpered, digging her face into her father’s chest. Ethan prayed out loud, reciting what he could remember of the Lord’s prayer. Omar leaned against the wall, his hands covering his head.
A high-pitch squeal pierced the volume of the pounding and the static of the radio. Then the ground shook and a POP vibrated the very air around them. A low rumble followed that got louder as it rushed near them. It became deafening and started to crumble the walls above them, throwing debris across the stairwell before dropping the metal staircase down on their heads.
The ceiling began to fall down and the stairs themselves started to crumble. The steel bent under the impact and crumpled down toward the floor. Screams and yelps of pain cried out. Eventually the stairs created a shield over the group, forming a steel nest that barely held the massive pieces of wall.
Day 23
4:01 pm
Long minutes passed before the ringing in their ears stopped and the last rumble fell away with the dust. Morgan called out first, asking if everyone was all right.
The Petersons called back.
Ethan coughed and gave a weak, “My leg…” before coughing more.
Alex fumbled with the small flashlight on the barrel of his pistol, finally managing to turn it on and cast it around the small enclosure the cave-in had created. Everyone was covered in dirt. Scratches and small amounts of blood mixed with the filth of the falling debris.
Ethan held his leg, a piece of steel lying next to it. The jagged steel was pointed toward a bloody gouge out of Ethan’s leg. Ethan held it tightly.
“It’s okay. It looks worse than it is,” Ethan said, moving his foot around to show he still had control of it.
Alex turned the flashlight toward Omar and saw the boy slumped over with a pile of rubble crushing his lower body. A large pool of blood covered the ground and he didn’t move.
“Omar?” Emma whimpered, spitting out dirt as she spoke.
“Oh shit,” Alex spoke. Above him debris fell when the weight of the rubble hanging above them shifted.
“Emma,” Mr. Peterson said, but realized he had nothing to say. He had no words to offer his daughter. He simply held onto her, stopping her from going to the boy.
It didn’t take long for Omar to start twitching, his mouth growling with hunger, but unable to move from under the fallen wall.
“Oh my god! I knew something was wrong with him. He was infected!” Mr. Peterson spit.
Alex screamed, unable to stay calm with everything that just happened. “Don’t you fucking get it! We’re all infected! We all change into those things if we die!”
The metal beams that used to support the staircase let out a wrenching squeal as they bent under the stress of the weight. Larger pieces of debris above them fell.
“We need to get out of here,” Alex said, trying to lower his voice unsuccessfully.
Morgan wiped the dirt from her eyes. “Maybe the bomb killed them. Maybe there isn’t anything out there. Maybe it’s safe to go out.”
“Maybe,” Alex said quietly. The metal staircase above them bent, letting out another horrific sound and dropping more dirt on to all of them. “Either way, we can’t stay here. Mr. Peterson, help me with the door.”
Mr. Peterson crawled toward where Alex had turned on the flashlight again. He handed the gun to Morgan and she pointed it at the door. A beam from the staircase had fallen over the door, making it impossible to open the door inward.
“Mr. Peterson, get on that end of the beam and help me lift it up. When we raise the beam Morgan, you open the door and get it under the beam, so we can drop it and get out.”
Everyone nodded silently at each other and the two men started to lift. Mr. Peterson and Alex grunted as they elevated the beam, causing hunks of dirt and debris to fall down again.
Just as the beam inched over the doorway, Alex grunted out, “Now!”
Morgan yanked the door, the metal screeching against the metal of the stairway beam. Mr. Peterson and Alex dropped the beam on top of the door. They all looked out to see a parking lot full of corpses lying on the ground.
The corpses were nothing more than blown apart pieces. Even the ones fairly intact had smaller holes blown through them, but most were just piles of arms and legs. Torsos and heads.
The cars that weren’t torn apart were flipped over, cast aside like children’s toys. Morgan’s Volkswagen was nowhere to be seen.
A gray cloud of debris blew through the air, making it impossible to see past the parking lot, but the city was quiet. The moans had stopped.
The group wandered out of the building, holding their shirts over their mouths and squinting their eyes. Ethan limped slowly on one leg.
The wind was unnatural, blowing the gray dust that covered everything into their faces at an incredible speed.
Alex looked back at the apartment building that used to stand three stories, and saw only one wall still standing. Bricks, broken pipes and smoldering wreckage lay in a pile next to the broken wall. Alex’s home was nothing more than a covered grave.
“Let’s go,” Ethan said, tugging on Alex’s shirt. “I don’t want to be outside longer than we have to be.”
“One second,” Alex said before stepping back into the building. Acting quickly, he found a large hunk of stone lying on the ground and stepped toward the writhing corpse of Omar. With a single smash, the stone splintered Omar’s skull, flattening the brain inside. Omar’s body stopped moving.
Alex tore the shirt off Omar’s back before he walked back out into the whipping, gray wind, holding hi
s hand to block the ash from going into his eyes. He walked around the blown up corpses, looking closely at the pile. He stopped and started digging his hands into the gray body parts.
He stood up, holding the shotgun that was strapped to Frank's back.
He snapped off the flashlight taped to the barrel of the empty gun, and slung the weapon over his shoulder.
Checking to see if the flashlight still worked, he stepped back to the group. He made no eye contact while he wrapped Omar's shirt around Ethan’s leg, trying to stop the bleeding that looked bright red compared to the gray of everything else.
When he finished, the group stuck close to the crumbled wall of the building as they walked toward the street, trying to stay out of the howling wind and still afraid that the corpses littering the ground would rise up at any moment.
When they made it to the front of the building, Alex squinted tighter, trying to peer down the city block. Rubble covered the sidewalks and street, crushing cars and corpses with indiscretion. Buildings that once towered into the sky lay in piles, broken shells of their former height. Smoke and fire poured out from nearly every building, and any loose part of rubble was tossed aside in the wind.
“My god,” Alex said, his face chalky white from the dust that covered his body, “What did they do?”
“There’s nothing left,” Morgan said, trying to catch her breath without inhaling all the particles in the air.
“We survived,” Mr. Peterson grunted, spitting dust out of his mouth. “That’s what matters. And now we know the military is still out there. They’re still fighting! This is a good thing!”
“Those guys didn’t really sound professional or… they just didn’t sound like they knew what they were doing. And besides, even if it really was the army, I don’t think it’s a good sign that they’ve resorted to bombing American soil.” Alex said this as he turned his back on Mr. Peterson, uninterested in any debate the man had to offer. “If they’re ready to flatten a major city, it’s obvious the ground war isn’t going well.”
“Was it nuclear?” Ethan asked, turning around to try and completely take in his surroundings. “Should we be out in the radiation?”
“We’d be dead if it was nuclear,” Alex said. “It was just a really big bomb. Even so, we should find somewhere that’s still standing. Somewhere safer.”
The group stood, trying to decide a direction to move when a moan erupted down the street. They immediately started moving the opposite way. As they made their way down the block, all of them found pieces of wood to use in case they needed to defend themselves. Ethan held his hunk of wood more as a walking stick, while everyone else gripped theirs like a weapon, held out in front of them defensively.
Alex stopped at the corner of every building, looking into the alleyway for movement. The farther they moved, the more often they heard moans. When they reached a major intersection, they saw a group of corpses moving across the street. All of them had been blown apart pretty badly and hobbled on legs with barely any muscles left.
“Their bodies were pretty damaged,” Alex said to the line of survivors that trailed behind him, all leaning against the corner of the building they hid behind.
A fire raged across the street, consuming three of the four buildings, but it was creeping toward the last. Alex knew that further down the block the buildings became more spread out, filled with townhouses instead of apartment complexes.
“Come on,” Alex said, stepping out from the corner. “If we run, they’ll never be able to keep up.”
“Alex,” Morgan said, looking at Ethan.
Alex denied the fact that his mind’s first thought was to leave Ethan. That he would only slow them down.
“Come here,” Alex said, putting his arm around Ethan to brace himself. “We’re going to move fast so just hop on one leg and put your weight on me, okay?”
The group hesitantly stepped out and broke into a run when the zombies noticed them. All five of them ran down the street, leaving footprints in the ashy dirt, only to be blown away in the whipping wind.
Alex held his arm up to shield his eyes as he looked down the neighborhood street. The houses that once stood on the street were decimated, blown into piles of wood and nothing more. The cement foundations were the only things that gave a hint of where buildings once stood.
Alex wanted to stop and stare in horror at the devastation, but the creeping danger of the outside world pushed him forward. He kept running, his lungs inhaling the ash as he gasped for breath. He pushed his out of shape body past its limitations, continuing down street after street of rubble, lugging Ethan along with him.
Finally, Morgan grabbed his sleeve, gasping the words, “Alex… stop…”
The group slowed down behind him, standing in the middle of the neighborhood street. Mr. Peterson bent over, leaning on his knees while his body coughed out his exhaustion. Emma looked behind them, only seeing a few corpses dragging their feet in the distance. Ethan leaned against Alex, rubbing his wounded leg with a strained look on his face.
The farther away they ran, the thinner the ash was. Alex was definitely leading them away from the epicenter of the blast.
“We need…” Alex panted. “We need to keep moving.”
“Just give us a second,” Morgan said, looking Alex directly into his eyes, telling him to slow down without saying a word.
“Okay,” Alex said. “Just keep your eyes open. If you see any corpses…”
Ethan stretched his back, scanning the cloud of ash, trying to see past the blowing debris. Across the street he saw a dead body dragging itself across the front yard. He said Alex’s name and pointed at the torn apart body moving toward them.
Alex left Ethan balancing on one foot while he stomped across the street, and walked across the lawn to the body. Slamming his hunk of wood into the body’s skull, he crushed the brain under the impact. He walked back over to the group.
“Let’s keep moving,” he said. “We’ll go slower, I promise.”
The group groaned and stood up, moving down the road. Alex was impressed with the constitution they were all showing and walked next to them. He kept his eyes on the distance, always looking for movement. They walked for blocks, seeing only more destruction in the gray fog of dirt that hovered over the city. The wind carried a hollowness that even a city of dead could not create.
Soon the street crept up a hill, the sides of which used to be lined with trees. Only splintered stumps lay in the ground, torn from the rest of their growth. The houses here had a bit more left to the ground floor, but the walls still stood with gaping holes in them, offering the group no protection.
“We need to get out of the city while we still can.” Mr. Peterson growled his words, obviously making a demand more than offering a suggestion.
Alex hated to admit it. “You’re right. We need to use this opportunity.” He looked around at the sky, trying to make sense of his directions. “We can cut over to 35W and head north, travel on US 8 into Wisconsin. Totally bypass Hudson.”
“You want to see your Father,” Morgan said.
“He said he was safe. There are not a lot of people in the area. It’s…” Alex looked at the ground. “It’s the only idea I have.”
“No, it’s a good one,” Morgan said.
Emma shook her head, unwilling to look into the eyes of any of her companions, “We lost all of our food. All of our things. All that work.”
Mr. Peterson sounded annoyed, “It will be fine, Emma. We can find more food. We can start over. There’s no reason to cry.”
Alex scowled at the man, pushing his anger toward the insensitive father deeper down. He tried to empathize with Mr. Peterson. He knew the man was still in denial. Alex knew that Mr. Peterson still believed the world would go back to the way it was. Even with the destruction that blotted out the sky.
Alex continued walking east, down another neighborhood road, spotting a scattering of slow-moving corpses up ahead.
He gripped his bloody p
iece of wood in his hand, readying the makeshift weapon for more violence.
Day 23
7:02 pm
Minneapolis burned in the distance, a cloud of gray ash hovered within the skyline. The entire city looked as if it smoldered, emanating smoke in a massive plume, blocking out the sun itself. The towers of smoke had replaced the buildings.
The group stood on a hilltop, looking out over what was left of the buildings below them. They remained there in silence. None of them knew the words that would fit the situation. None of them were aware of their own emotions. Emma was the only one allowing herself to react. She was the only one allowing herself to feel.
She cried for Omar, the heart of youth unhindered by the short amount of time they spent together. She whimpered and screamed a few times when she saw the state of the city. And, possibly more than anyone else, she still reacted to the dead.
Whether they had given up, assuming death was inevitable, or they had no emotion left to give, the rest of the group let out no screams, or showed anything like fear when faced with the few moving corpses left after the bomb.
They reacted with a blank look on their face as they smashed in the skulls of the bodies that still moved. With the color of the ash covering every square inch of the group, Emma could barely tell the difference between her companions and the walking dead.
Alex leaned over a barrier and looked at a road sign that hung on the highway below them. The sign hung sideways, dangling below the over pass.
US 8 15 MILES
He glanced across the highway and saw buildings that looked fairly intact besides broken windows and some missing shingles. He pointed them out to the group.
“Looks promising,” Ethan said, noticing the same buildings Alex did.
“We should stop at the Wal-Mart,” Mr. Peterson said, breathing heavy. “Once we get up north. Get supplies.”
After Life Page 11