by Steven Till
There, at the top of the building. A dark silhouette peered over the roof ledge. Then, in a split second, the shadow disappeared. That had to have been the presence that she had felt. She continued to stare at the roof a few moments longer. Then, with a low, gurgling grunt, she turned to the mass of zombies behind her. Their attention had been on the roof as well, trying to see what their queen had been so gazing at. As one, they dropped their gaze to her. She looked over her ranks for a moment, then turned and began to walk down Grant Street towards the inferno that was burning across the river.
Immediately, the mass of creepers followed. A few of the dead warriors raced ahead to scout the area for any possible threat to their leader. Sunshine walked at a slow, deliberate pace. The bloody teddy bear still clutched in her hand. The shadowy figure on the rooftops unsettled her. It wasn’t one of her children and it wasn’t human. That much she knew. What she didn’t know, was whether it was her enemy. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the man. Capture the man. Grow her army. If the shadow returned and interfered, then it, whatever it was, would be sorry. The Horde shambled on as the night grew darker.
CHAPTER 19 ON THE RUN
“Bro… Hey...bro.”
“Dude, wake up man.”
The words seemed to bounce around Nathan’s head like a racquetball. Someone spoke to him, but it sounded strange. It almost sounded like Ronnie, but at the same time, sounded quite alien to him. Then he heard what sounded like...crunching?
“Time to wake up, bro,” the voice said to him. It definitely sounded like his friend, but it also sounded like his mouth was full. What happened, why did he sound that way?
He couldn’t see anything. Slowly, he tried to open his eyelids. Strange light flooded into his pupils and assaulted his brain. Blurry images danced in front of him. The pictures began to sharpen into focus. There, standing above him, was Ronnie. No, not Ronnie, but a grotesque facsimile of his friend. The frightful face was gnawing on what appeared to be a rat.
Nathan sat up and screamed. At that same moment, unbearable pain coursed through every fiber of his body, causing him to scream even more. The cry which erupted from his throat sounded even more alien than Ronnie’s voice. It almost sounded as if two separate people were screaming at the same time, but at different frequencies. He would have been more curious about this if it weren’t for the waves of pain surging through his muscles.
“Hey there brother, just take it easy,” Ronnie said, as he finished gobbling down the rodent. He knelt down next to his friend and helped him to his feet.
Nathan couldn’t take his eyes off his buddy. He looked so different. He looked like... One of them. The thought of Ronnie as one of those heartless creatures both saddened and sickened him.
“What happened? What’s going on? Did you slip me some acid or something, everything looks weird?” He asked as he stood on painful, shaky legs.
Ronnie laughed. “No man, you’re sober. But, uh, there’s something you should know, bro.”
His expression changed. The laughter stopped and the smile that was on his face a moment ago faded. Rat blood trickled down his chin.
“What is it?” Nathan asked. He realized that they stood on the trolley tracks at the mouth of the subway tunnel.
Ronnie walked to the side of the tracks and picked up what appeared to be a piece of broken mirror. He lifted the mirror up to his friend’s face. Nathan peered into the cracked reflection in disbelief. Blood-red eyes stared back at him. The face in the reflection was whiter than a ghost, save for the trail of dried blood that ran down the front of the chin. He raised his hands to his face, but stopped short once he saw the long talons before him. Panic set in. He looked from the mirror to Ronnie, then back to the mirror, hoping that this was some kind of hallucination.
“What the fuck happened to me!? What the fuck happened to YOU!?”
“Just calm down bro, take it easy. It’s not as bad as you think,” Ronnie replied.
“Not as bad as I think!? We’ve changed into fucking zombies and I’m supposed to start singing Hakuna Matata? Jesus Christ Ronnie, what in God’s name happened to us?"
“Honestly bro, I don’t think God had anything to do with this shit. I was watching the shit hit the fan across the river when some old fucker attacked me. I gave him a good beat down, but not before he got a good chunk of my forearm. I guess that’s what did me in. Anyway, I headed towards the subway station to meet you and there was a huge mob of creepy-crawlies outside. I couldn’t get to you that way, so I had to backtrack, find where the subway came out of town, and climb up the train trestle. I found you laying on the tracks inside the tunnel. Looks like you managed to take a lot of them out, but they fucked up your leg pretty bad.”
Nathan stood on the tracks and looked down the length of the bridge ahead towards the South Side. Fires burned everywhere he looked. He had to admit, he was impressed with Ronnie’s tenacity. It couldn’t have been easy for his friend to find him. The memories of what had happened ebbed back into his consciousness. Running from the Army/Navy store. The little zombie girl “Sunshine.” The horde giving chase. Getting trapped in the subway platform. His leg ravaged by creepers.
He looked down at his hands, now foreign appendages. They hurt. The sudden change in physiology had caused pretty significant trauma to his fingers. The area around the talons ached. Another wave of body pain washed over him and he doubled over in agony. Ronnie moved towards the tunnel entrance and returned a moment later carrying a squirming rat in his hand.
“Dude, you need to eat something. Here, take this,” he said as he extended the wriggling animal.
“You’re high right now, aren’t you? I’m not going to eat that rat.”
More pain. More searing, burning, overwhelming pain.
“Well, ummm, you don’t have a choice, bro. The reason you’re in pain is because you’re hungry. Same thing happened to me after I woke up dead. Trust me man, you definitely want to eat this. The pain only gets worse.” Ronnie nudged Nathan in the arm and placed the rat into his hand. The rodent squirmed and squealed.
Reluctantly, Nathan grabbed the vermin and stared at it for a moment. Another wave of pain hit him, but this time it was stronger than anything he had felt thus far. Before he could even think about it, his mouth opened up, jaw distended, and his claws shoved the rat into his mouth. Blood gushed as he began to chew his meal. Part of his brain gagged and vomited from the thought of what he was doing, but the other part, the newer and larger part, loved it. He consumed the rat on instinct. Soon, the pain subsided.
He stood there for a moment contemplating what he had just done. I just devoured a rat. I didn’t just eat it, I devoured it. I’m a fucking monster. He looked up at Ronnie, who now inched his way closer. He, of course, was wearing a big ass grin on his face.
“Pretty messed up, huh bro?” the former hot dog vendor asked with a chuckle.
“That’s the understatement of the century, my friend,” he replied. Nathan had calmed somewhat, but the shock of discovering that he was now a card-carrying member of the undead was just too much for his brain to comprehend. Brains. That’s pretty funny, he laughed to himself.
Looking around, Nathan began to take in the scene around them and the dire urgency of their situation began to sink in. They stood at the mouth of the subway tunnel which lead into the city. In the opposite direction, the tracks extended across the river to Station Square, which, was completely engulfed in flames, chaos, and death. Both directions would be perilous and after his attack in Steel Plaza, going back underground was the last thing he wanted to do.
He looked down and inspected his ravaged leg and saw that it had completely healed. There were no marks, scars, or any other evidence of the injury on his bleached skin that he could tell. He moved his weaponized hands over his body, inspecting as much as he could, trying to determine how inhuman he had become. He was thankful that he hadn’t sprouted a barbed tail, so he marked that in the “plus” column. He was equally happy to
learn that he still had hair, although it stuck straight out in all directions. It felt like someone microwaved it for about twenty minutes.
“Hey, Ron-Star, what the hell happened to my hair?”
“Oh, yeah, about that... When you finally bit the bullet in the tunnel, you collapsed on the tracks and started to fry on the third rail. I guess they forgot to cut the power to the tracks. I got a pretty wicked jolt trying to lift you off of them, so I had to wait until you shorted out the line.”
Nathan stood there for a moment, looking at Ronnie incredulously. At the least, his transformation had saved his life, sort of.
“Right, well the first thing we need to do is get off this bridge.” Nathan began walking along the tracks towards the fire on the opposite bank of the Monongahela River.
“Right behind ya brotha,” Ronnie said as he fell in step.
“So, how long have you been like this, man?” Nathan asked.
“Oh, long enough to know that it has its upsides. We’re able to do all kinds of cool shit now.”
The two undead newborns began to make their way across the trestle, while Ronnie explained their new abilities to Nathan. He covered everything he knew; enhanced vision, improved strength and agility, as well as the hunger aspect and the need to feed.
They had walked halfway across the trestle when they had to stop. The military blew the bridges to prevent those in the city from escaping the quarantine; a thirty foot span of the tracks were gone. Twisted metal writhed along the edges of the chasm, high above the river. The pair stood in silence and stared at the newest obstacle before them. It struck Nathan as odd that the military destroyed the bridges, since the calamity had started in the South Side; outside the confines of Downtown. He supposed it was a move of desperation on the military's part.
“Duuuuuude, this just isn’t our day!” Ronnie exclaimed as he laughed and peered over the perilous edge.
“Really? Ya think so?” Nathan asked with an obvious air of sarcasm. “We need to find a way across this. Backtracking through the tunnel will only land us back in all that bullshit. Did you by chance grab those bags I had with me when you pulled me out of the tunnel?”
“Nope. Was I supposed to?”
Nathan hated himself for not asking about the bags before heading out over the bridge. The rappelling gear he managed to grab would've got them across to the other side.
“How far inside the tunnel did you find me?” he asked.
“Aw not far at all. Maybe about fifty yards or so.”
“Okay, let’s go back and grab them. I’ve got some rope that should work just fine.”
They turned from the ledge and headed back towards the tunnel. Before long, they were back where they started. A few steps into the cavernous entrance, complete darkness enveloped them. Nathan was still adjusting to his new vision. Shadows looked different now; not as dark, although he still couldn’t see well in the pitch black.
Ronnie seemed to be glowing red, but he knew that this was the heat signature that his eyes were detecting. The eerie glow wasn’t real and didn’t illuminate any of their surroundings.
They traveled deeper a few more yards, and then Nathan froze in his tracks and grabbed his companion’s coat sleeve. Ronnie looked up at him and followed his gaze into the depths of the passage. They saw the bags laying on the tracks. Beyond the bags, deeper into the crepuscule of the subway, stood a large shadow. It was impossible to determine the shape of the form, but they could see two large, luminous eyes staring back at them. Heavy, guttural breathing echoed off the tunnel walls.
“Is that another zombie?” Nathan whispered.
“No man, I don’t know what the fuck that is,” Ronnie whispered back. “Its glow is all weird. Humans glow white, we glow red, and that thing’s glowing like a greenish color. Plus, it’s like, not in focus or something. I can’t tell how big it is or even what it is, can you?”
“No, I can’t.”
The thing in the dark took two steps closer, never taking its silvery eyes off of them. The footsteps sounded strange as well, and they sounded heavy. Whatever this was, it seemed pretty damn big.
Nathan took a cautious step backward; Ronnie did the same. The creature didn’t move. It stood there, watching. Its eyes lowered to the duffel bag on the ground before it and the back up to the now petrified zombies.
“I think this thing is daring us to grab the bags, bro.”
Nathan, who still clutched Ronnie’s jacket, took another step backward. “I don’t think we should test our luck with this.”
“I completely agree.”
Another step backward.
The dynamic duo stared straight ahead, hoping that their shitty day wasn’t about to get any worse. The eyes that peered back fixated on them.
Another step backward.
Another pause. Nathan couldn’t tell if his heart was pounding, or if he still even had a heartbeat, but he was positive that he was in a heightened state of awareness. He felt Ronnie’s tension. He could smell the smoke from the South Side fires, but with all his new abilities, he couldn’t sense what was ahead.
Another step backward.
“This thing isn’t getting any closer. Maybe we should try to walk out of here...slowly,” Nathan suggested.
“I’m all for that, man.”
Another step backward. Then another. Twenty minutes later, they were at the edge of the entrance. The bodiless eyes were faint, but still present. The two turned towards the bridge and walked; never taking their eyes off of the phantom behind them.
When they reached about the halfway point between the tunnel and the bridge gap, they finally had the nerve to turn their heads and look where they were going. They also began to walk faster. Neither knew what they were going to do once they reached the edge, but they knew that they wanted to be as far away from that tunnel as possible.
Faster and faster they walked, chancing a glance behind them every few steps. The “thing” in the tunnel could no longer be seen, since their eyes had adjusted to the better light outside. Even though it was now night, their new zombie-vision made things a lot brighter. Finally, they made it back to the mangled ledge.
“So now what?” Ronnie asked.
“Beats me. Everything that could help us is sitting in that duffel bag back there.”
They scrutinized their situation, but were still no closer to a solution on how to cross. They both must have had the same tingling feeling, at the same moment, because the two of them glanced back at the tunnel. There, just out of reach of the dim light, were those penetrating eyes again. It didn’t move closer, but the fact that it had advanced to the entrance gave them both anxiety.
“Oh snap!” Ronnie said. “This thing is seriously giving me the creeps, bro.”
“Fuck. Okay buddy, we REALLY need to find a way across. It’s not an option now.”
Ronnie must have had an idea, because he looked over the ledge and then got a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. Nathan could almost hear a bell ding as if to signify his friend’s revelation.
“Dude, so we’re zombies right?”
“So it would seem, what’s your point?” Nathan asked, keeping an eye on the eyes that kept an eye on them. “How is that going to get us across? Even we can’t jump that far.”
“Bro, we don’t have to jump OVER the gap.”
Nathan tore his gaze from the tunnel and looked back to his friend. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he had a gut feeling he didn’t want to know.
“We just have to jump down.”
Before Nathan could object, Ronnie smiled, gave a little wave, and then swan dived off the wrecked trestle. A loud, metallic “clang” chimed as the Hot Dog King spanked his head off a twisted I-beam that extended out into the gap below them. A few short moments later came a splash as he hit the river.
Nathan leaned over, sure that his friend had just killed himself...Assuming that was possible.
“Ronnie! RONNIE!” he yelled. Stealing a glance back to the
tunnel, the silvery eyes remained fixated on him. For the moment, he was still safe. But safety in numbers just jumped off a fucking bridge. He peered back over the tracks and scanned the water for any sign of life, or un-life, as it were.
Ronnie finally breached the surface of the water. He seemed to be alive-ish and well. He gave a “thumbs-up” and began to swim towards the bridge’s support pylon.
“Watch that first step bro, it’s a fucking doozie!” he yelled up. “Shit! I think I broke my collar bone!”
A loud roar erupted from the tunnel. Nathan jumped off the ledge without thinking, glancing back as he glided through the air. The eyes began to advance from the dark recesses of the tunnel. A shadow began to appear, but Nathan had passed below the tracks before he could make out the beast that had emerged. He fell towards the icy river below, taking care not to smack into a stray I-beam. A moment later he was in the water.
As Nathan surfaced, he was surprised that the fall didn’t hurt at all and that the frigid water was barely noticeable; a slight tingle of the skin. He swam over to where Ronnie was gripping onto a hand-hold in the pylon.
“Get to the shore. Now!” Nathan exclaimed.
The two headed for shore as fast as they could. Soon, they crawled out of the icy river and up onto the embankment, shifting their position under the end of the bridge.
“We can’t stay here,” said Nathan. “Whatever was in the tunnel started to come at me as I jumped.”
“Is that what I heard? I thought you were just super excited to follow me down,” replied Ronnie. “So what was it anyway?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t able to get a good look. All I could make out was a dark, blurry shape. Whatever it was though, it was huge.”
They looked up and down the river banks, looking for any sign of immediate danger. None could be seen, yet they heard voices, along with some vehicle engines above them at the foot of the bridge. Nathan indicated to Ronnie with a hand gesture that they should keep quiet and then pointed up. Ronnie acknowledged and gave the “OK” signal back.