Xenia, After

by Joe Schlegel

  Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Her tiny voice cracked, “BAD MEN! BAD MEN!”

  She craned her face to the rooftops again.

  And she screamed.

  “BAD MEN! BAD MEN!”

  17.

  Scramble

  David heard a tiny echo.

  He furrowed his eyebrows, kneaded by a spritely curiosity.

  Gradually, he peaked over the edge of the roof, just above the Main Street, Detroit Street junction. He spied Rhea as she scrambled along the double yellow lines.

  David lifted his gaze up to the adults. Ben and Mohammad supported each other, and Anika threw Seven’s arm around her own shoulders to lift her to her feet.

  They appeared injured, and they bobbled after the little girl.

  He grasped the skeletal frame of his Ruger 10/22 rifle. And he cradled the stock against his shoulder, then tilted his head to peer down the scope.

  The adults stumbled hurriedly after Rhea.

  David’s sights lingered on Ben’s wounds and scrapes along his legs and arms. The other adults limped and struggled, as well. Their injuries looked fresh.

  He swung his attention further up Detroit Street.

  Several of them chased the survivors, and several more sprinted into view from down the hill, from connecting side streets, from everywhere. Their wailing attracted still more.

  David jerked his head upright and squinted down the street. Their wild, unhinged movements, even from afar, left no doubt as to their infected states of being.

  He turned his body toward the courthouse, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed loudly, “Hey! We got company! Coming down Detroit! Get to your stations now!”

  Pressing the skeletal rifle tight against his shoulder, he cocked his head sideways and aimed at the nearest. He fired two rounds, and they powerfully exclamated his call to arms to everyone near the central intersection.

  It continued to chase its lunch despite the high-powered abuse. Several more sprinted close behind it.

  David resettled his aim.

  He fired five more shots.

  The one in the lead stumbled and fell face down into the cement. It slid several feet.

  From within the courthouse, a woman tugged open the re-enforced front doors.

  She dashed along the bricked walkways, surrounded on either side by the unmaintained grass.

  Rhea recognized her, and she ran in her direction.

  The woman scooped her up protectively. She waved her free arm to the limping grown-ups and cried over the rifle percussion, “You can make it! Rest in here!”

  She dashed back through the courthouse’s wild lawn and carried Rhea to safety.

  Norman dashed along a narrow alley. An AR-15 rifle swung in his arms.

  He spilled out into the middle of Detroit Street, the courthouse only a half block behind him. David’s gunfire punctuated the air above his head.

  Overtop the cars that cluttered in the way, he easily spotted them. They chased four injured survivors.

  And Norman charged toward them.

  As he neared the next intersection, he slowed to a stop. He checked up and down Second Street, ensured a few, free moments to act, and he raised his assault rifle.

  He fired two rounds into the oncoming horde.

  Then he fired five more.

  The nearest to Ben and Mohammad finally tumbled to its knees.

  Seven and Anika passed Norman first, protected by his cover fire.

  Movement in his peripheral drew the attention of Norman’s sights down Second Street. Two of them sprinted maniacally toward the sounds of humans and warfare.

  As he pivoted and unleashed a hellfire into their chests and faces, Ben and Mohammad hobbled through the intersection, too. They looked up to the courthouse’s clock tower, only one more block from sanctuary.

  Norman backtracked protectively with the four, and he fired bursts of rounds that clashed with David’s from the rooftops.

  Another survivor scurried toward the squat underpass just beneath the jail. She emerged from the other side and dead ended into the sidewalk beside the courthouse.

  In a blind rush with an M16 in her hands, she dashed to the barricaded side door.

  But instead of gaining entry into the courthouse, she turned to the sturdy, metal scaffolding that rose several stories up the exterior wall. She tossed her rifle over the railing, effortlessly leapt, then picked up her weapon and scrambled three at a time up the metal stairs.

  The survivor checked around for them, for anything attracted to the sounds of civilization. More survivors joined the percussive fray elsewhere.

  Jogging pathetically along Main Street, one floated past her sights.

  She led it patiently, then fired. Her rounds perforated the air alongside the gunfire in the near distance.

  It collapsed into the trunk of an abandoned sedan.

  As it slid down to the asphalt, Seven and Anika scrambled past, nearly to the courthouse’s overgrown lawn.

  They surged the final leg of the race.

  Rhea poked her head out of the courthouse’s barricaded doors.

  She squealed, “MOMMY!”

  Seven ascended the front steps and scooped her daughter up in her arms. She fell painfully to her knees in the foyer and hugged Rhea tightly. Tears of terror and relief streamed down both their cheeks.

  Ben and Mohammad trampled into the courthouse, and Rhea’s savior slammed and bolted the re-enforced doors behind them. Everyone finally released their bated breaths. Shaken, frightened tears fell to the floor.

  From his rooftop perch, David swung his sights further up Detroit Street, nearer the caboose. He spotted several more of them approach, attracted to their kind and their own racket.

  “I need to reload,” he grunted and pushed back from the ledge.

  He scrambled to a row of plastic totes already placed and stocked, a protective tarp recently removed.

  Another rooftop shooter aimed down at the amassing horde.

  Indiscriminately, he opened fire.

  From around the corner, a semi-automatic rifle marked yet another shooter who had sighted in on them. Their combined gunfire barely allowed a moment of silence between them.

  The echoes reverberated further.

  More of them heard, and they ran toward the middle of town.

  18.

  The Generators

  North Team scurried up Detroit Street.

  Everyone stood on their pedals and pumped ardently toward the echoing gunfire.

  They rode past Shawnee Park. Half a dozen of them scrambled around the gazebo and through the unmaintained grass, desperate to also reach the unmistakable noises of frantic humanity.

  Trapper led the four others in a race to beat them to the action. Nimbly, they maneuvered around and through the obstructions and dregs.

  The central intersection gradually rose into view over the tops of the cars. A line of generators stood ready to be powered up—

  But atop the sidewalks, a chilling image harkened back to the infection’s original outbreak – they swarmed under the view of the shooters, and they beat and pounded on the store fronts, desperate to reach the food above their heads. The covered, re-enforced windows of the deserted businesses held strong, but no one expected the piecemeal safeguards to hold up against a fresh swarm.

  Above them, the shooters fired into the distance to stem the burgeoning incursion. Still, many slipped through the cracks of their defenses, scurried through the crevices of the town like cockroaches.

  Huffing eagerly toward the battle, Jake gripped the handlebars. The tattoos on his knuckles flashed dangerously, “F-E-E-D – J-A-K-E.”

  He checked behind North Team, back toward the park, and he discerned the approaching ones from the distance— more to test the limited resilience of the storefront barricades. And he found them so abruptly surrounded.

  “We need to get those generators on!” He shouted over the echoing gunfire, “We need to distract and c
onverge them! Cover me!”

  Without a twitch of hesitation, Jake charged ever faster into the intersection.

  The rest of the team hurried behind him.

  He deftly leapt off his bike over the back wheel. It launched, sped along on its own, then slammed into an abandoned car.

  Jake sprinted the remaining few steps to the generators. He halted by the nearest one and crouched down beside it.

  The rest of the team positioned themselves nearby, and they swung their rifles around to watch over him, each chose a different direction from the middle.

  One of them noticed the newly-arrived, ground-level lunch. It broke off from its struggle with a barricaded window.

  It rushed from the sidewalk and charged North Team.

  Corrine spied it first.

  She sighted in its face, then fired several rounds.

  It collapsed, so easily thwarted.

  The first generator roared to life.

  Its motor revved loud enough to slightly dampen the percussion of the overhead rifle shots. Lured away by the noise, several more peeled away from their frenzied battle to reach the rooftop shooters.

  They clamored hungrily for the entrees that surrounded the generators.

  More gunfire joined the chorus.

  And more of them charged from the distance, from every direction.

  Jake started the second generator. The motor duet belted its mechanical harmony to the blue heavens and through the streets of Xenia.

  The rest of them abandoned their breaking and entering. Like a seventy-decibel bug zapper, they followed the duet of modern humanity into the open, unobstructed from the rooftop gunners.

  Concentrating his gunfire on the migrating horde from Shawnee Park, Trapper bellowed, “We need to get the hell off the street, now!”

  North Team retreated together. They left their bikes on the ground, too concerned about aiming their weapons with both hands.

  As they traversed from the central intersection, Jake helped Trapper clear away the park’s horde.

  They herded back down Detroit Street, but only half a block. Trapper led them into a small parking lot across from the courthouse, surrounded on all sides by the rear doors and back walls of two, L-shaped strip malls.

  He pointed to both buildings on either side of them, “Two on each roof! Tag ‘em before they get close!”

  Jake veered left, followed by another member of North Team, and they aimed for a metal staircase. The canopy that once covered the raised doorway exposed the thin, metal frame, stripped away long ago to make room for the ladder, and the aluminum rungs jutted straight up through it and onto the roof.

  Rushing straight ahead, Trapper and Corrine scrambled to an access ladder with its protective chain link fence peeled out and away from it.

  One of them chased North Team into the small parking lot.

  Jake heard its screeches and babbles.

  He turned, and he opened fire.

  Bullets sliced through decayed flesh, chipped away at weakened bone, and splattered thick, darkened blood.

  It collapsed to the concrete.

  Jake waited for his teammate to ascend the ladder first. She scurried to the roof while adrenaline surged through her veins.

  And he watched the other parking lot entrance behind him for anymore wayward ones. He hesitated long enough for Trapper and Corrine to climb to their posts safely.

  Then Jake finally rushed from ground level. He barreled up the shaky ladder, through the stripped-away canopy, and over the ledge.

  Gunfire echoed with a higher pitch from above the action, but it resonated just as loudly.

  His teammate ripped aside a protective tarp, and she revealed several plastic, durable totes.

  She opened the first one and burrowed feverishly among the collection of rifle magazines, searched for a match to the nearly-empty one already jammed into her weapon.

  Reloading, she rushed to the ledge. She aimed down toward the generators.

  A growing number of them swarmed through the detritus to reach the noisy intersection. They arrived from every corner of the city map.

  Jake leaned over the ledge a few yards from her.

  He trained his sights on them.

  Then he fired his well-placed rounds into each one from the distance, careful not to shoot or damage a generator.

  On the roof of the L-shaped building behind them, Trapper dashed to the nearest corner. He aimed out over the large parking lot, to the expanse of concrete cracked and dulled from once-vibrant consumerism.

  He fired at the ones that rushed across the wide open expanse.

  Corrine ran to the far corner, along the length of the strip mall’s front.

  Targeting down Main Street, she picked off any that approached the boisterous intersection.

  Five bicycles sped past Corrine’s sights – West Team had arrived from their sweep out along the Dayton edge of town, led by the Shawnee war face of Conrad.

  Conrad pedaled furiously along the middle of Main Street.

  He led them nearly to the central intersection but veered into a back parking lot. A wide selection of ladders created a jumbled path up to the highest roofs, all strewn about where ever the collection of progressive rooftops allowed.

  They abandoned their bikes, rushed for the various ladders, then they spread out along the top ledges, all perched overtop the running generators.

  West Team added to the cacophony of gunfire.

  The additional shooters finally managed to push them back further and further from the intersection.

  Their bodies halted a block away, and then two blocks away, then they fell lifeless mere moments after they scrambled into view.

  And their numbers quickly diminished.

  The gunfire slowed down, and eventually it only punctuated the mechanical harmony of the generator duet.

  Trapper descended from his post overtop the expansive parking lot. He sprinted into the intersection.

  He shut off both machines.

  An eerie silence pressed in on the survivors, momentarily absent of even bugs, birds, and pests.

  A few, periodic gunshots rang out, then a few more, each one less of a threat to nature as the critters rose to a loud chorus once again.

  Gunfire eventually silenced altogether.

  Everyone waited, and everyone watched.

  Gradually, the community factions emerged from their posts.

  From above, Conrad watched Mohammad and Anika exit the courthouse. Ben limped along behind them.

  The students frantically waved for everyone to assemble near the generators.

  He muttered, concerned, “Now what’s all this shit about?”

  Conrad rose, descended to the back parking lot, and jogged down along the winding sidewalk between two deserted businesses. He emerged onto Main Street.

  Several gun-toting survivors already gathered in the central intersection.

  Mohammad’s voice rose audibly as Conrad neared the group. It rang with sorrow and urgency, its normal baritone broken by fright.

  “Everyone thought they went missing, or everyone thought they were attacked, but some of them are still alive!”

  Grave, hesitant hope flickered across everyone’s faces.

  “They may not have much more time left! We need to get to them now, before they break through the doors!”

  David questioned suspiciously, “Where is this? Where are we going?”

  “Where Maddox settled in, on the transportation department’s property. It’s up Detroit hill, just past the baseball diamonds.”

  “Where is Maddox?”

  “Dead,” Mohammad savagely confessed.

  David flashed a sorrowful grimace, and he fell quiet.

  “The survivors need medical attention,” Anika urged. “And there are quite a few of them. How are we going to get them somewhere safe?”

  “Were there city trucks in the parking lot, too?” Attention volleyed to Conrad, who shouldered into the middle of the group. The
moderator sought action over discussion.

  Anika confirmed, “Yeah, quite a few.”

  “Then that seems the best option to move them. We’ll have to fun for some keys. How many survivors are we talking about?”

  “Half a dozen, at least. There may be more on the grounds, or even stashed nearby somewhere. Might be a good idea to comb the immediate area. From what we just saw up there, Maddox was a sick, perverted piece of shit. What we’re about to walk in on is some twisted, inhuman conditions ...just so you’re all warned.”

  Conrad nodded to the assembled survivors, “Alright, everyone – we’ve got some family to bring home.”

  They all rushed for their bikes where ever they rested, discarded before the gunfight.

  David followed the pack, but only to the overturned caboose. A bent bicycle next to a bleeding corpse halted the rescue party.

  The polo shirt and face scar immediately identified William.

  “Don’t get too depressed,” Anika announced, “because he and Wesley tried to hurt little Rhea. He got what was coming to him, believe that. Wesley’s up that hill somewhere, too.”

  Conrad lamented, “He could rise.”

  Awkward silence rippled across the survivors.

  David felt several furtive eyes stir in his direction. They flitted their attention to his own polo shirt.

  Gratefully, he took his leave.

  But instead of climbing Detroit hill, he left the intersection in the direction of Collier Chapel.

  He counted only a few houses— then a single gunshot pounded from behind him. While he hunched is powerful shoulders sadly, he expressed no remorse for a fellow believer too weak to retain God’s protection from evil. David only regretted the thinning to his congregation.

  19.

  The Rescue

  No one suspected how dark Maddox’s shadow truly casted. Hindsight gave ride to admissions, though soon everyone admitted that something about him rubbed them the wrong way, that his personality skewed with malevolent aura that simmered just beneath the vapidity.