Swarm (Dead Ends)

by G. D. Lang

  When the rumbling finally stopped, I expected the quiet to return, to soothe my mind for a few short minutes before the panic set in. Instead, I heard it again, the chilling call of the dead. That inexorable hum that seemed to vibrate through my body, to the very core of what made me human and made me wish I was anything but. I scanned the valley, squinting my eyes until I managed to see it: a blackish mass, its edges ebbing and flowing like the waves of the Puget Sound, uncompromising in their purpose but in no real hurry to fulfill it. At least that’s what it looked like to the naked eye. Back inside, peering through the telescope, a much more ominous picture manifested itself. A boundless swarm of snarling, angry freak shows in the midst of some undead death march, bulldozing the landscape as they pursued their hunger with a singular, trance-like purpose. They scratched, clawed, and trampled one another as they struggled to stay ahead of the pack, to be the first to draw blood if any prey that hadn’t already gotten the message had the misfortune of being in their way.

  Just when I had decided I could watch no more, I heard the sound of helicopters once again. Dozens of them – attack helicopters this time – descended on the valley, sending small missiles and heavy machine gun fire in the direction of the swarm. I leaned into the glass of the telescope once more to witness the carnage, hoping to mark a small check in the win column for those of us who still had a pulse. The munitions didn’t take long to hit home. Multitudes of the undead exploded into clouds of viscera and bone, a minefield of rancid meat geysers spurting into the air. But as those clouds dissipated, the next wave came bounding through the mist, unperturbed by the thinning of their ranks. Oblivious to the fire and brimstone that threatened to encompass them. The pilots continued their onslaught, taking turns until their missile bays were empty and their machine guns whirred in the wind, waiting to be fed more rounds that didn’t exist. And then one by one, they retreated back towards the direction of the base, hopefully to refuel and reload. All the while, the mass continued on, unencumbered by fear or exhaustion. Resolute in purpose, they just kept coming.

  Chapter 17

  The CB radio and the desk it was sitting on flailed into the air and came crashing to the floor as I erupted into an angry, panicked frenzy. I screamed and yelled obscenities, using up every one in the book multiple times. I even made up a few. Stringing together existing expletives and creating compound obscenities like some kind of X-rated beat poet. And still, they continued on. There was nothing I could do that would stop them. I was completely powerless. And that fact, combined with an increasing bit of light-headedness, ended my hissy fit just as quickly as it had began. Knowing, without hesitancy, that I can’t win brought on a surprising wave of peace and calm. If there was no way to win, then there was nothing to stress out about. I could play it fast and loose, like an aging boxer who gladly plays the role of the tomato can as long as the check clears. Admittedly I’d already been shooting from the hip for the most part but that was due mostly to the steady stream of chemicals sprinting through my veins. At some point, the well was going to run dry. But having the knowledge that my chances of survival would decrease exponentially with each passing day, no matter what I did? Well, that kind of seemed like a free pass to no longer give a shit. I could either get depressed and lament my unavoidable fate or I could make the most of the time I had left. It’s an easy decision as far as I’m concerned. Survival was no longer some eternal thing to strive for; the holy grail of existence. It was a game, plain and simple. And I’d play that game to the best of my ability until the time ticked down to nothing but zeros. Limited options make for easier decisions, I suppose.

  After seeing that swarm of hungry meat-grinders covering ground as if a wildfire were at their backs, I knew it was time to leave this place if I wanted this little game to continue. I made one last trip back to the bunker to retrieve any last supplies I might need and say a final goodbye to my friends. I hadn’t known them long, but their memories would be with me always. I wish I could do more for them in death but logically I know there is nothing I can do. It’s the thought that counts. At least that’s what I tell myself. As I stuffed the last of a small box of candy bars I had found hidden under the bed into the backpack, I glanced at the notebook that I had seen Jane writing in on several occasions. I hesitated in picking it up but curiosity got the better of me. Jane had always seemed as if she were in her own world when that notebook was open. I desperately wanted to know what it was that kept her attention so completely, even as the world fell apart around her.

  Beautifully drawn exotic flowers in full bloom adorned the first page, their stems writhing and winding around the paper, lazily swallowing the sea of white like ivy. Beautiful in its simplicity. The next few pages were sketched portraits of people I didn’t recognize. Jane had a real talent for drawing. Then I came to the pages that made me choke up slightly. A portrait of Zoe, Ricky, and me all perfectly rendered. She drew us to look strong, confident even. The versions of us that didn’t yet know just how bad things were going to get. It had only been a few days and already those people seemed so foreign to me. I looked at my portrait, a version of myself I would never see again, and shook my head as I ran my fingers across the page. Maybe I didn’t exactly like who I was, what I had allowed myself to become over the last few years, but I sure would’ve loved a chance to change that. I continued to flip through the pages. The portraits gave way to disturbingly realistic drawings of some of the zombies we had seen and others that perhaps she had seen before we’d met at the Sportsman’s Paradise. But they were different in little ways. Some featured snarling zombies with gigantic gag sunglasses on. Another featured zombies in a field with puffy white clouds and rainbows behind them. Another one showed a zombie holding hands with a living person. In her own way, it was like she was trying to humanize these things. They were human after all, at some point anyway. But to me all traces of that humanity had left them once the madness took hold. I guess Jane just had a different, more positive take on the whole thing.

  There is no more polarizing a force in the world than disaster. The same event can look so different depending on the eyes and minds of those viewing it, and even more so among those unlucky souls tasked with living through it. Some see destruction, a loss of hope. Others see the opportunity for renewal. I’d like to think I fall somewhere in the middle. But the truth was that I could feel the doom and gloom getting closer with each passing day, lurking in the shadows like hungry mosquitoes, patiently waiting until I let my guard down.

  One of the more detailed drawings was a re-creation of the famous “Nighthawks” painting by Edward Hopper. I remember it from an art class I mostly slept through in community college. People sitting in a diner in Anytown, USA, framed by a large glass window. Only this one featured several undead bodies peering through that large window, the hungry people inside seemingly unaware of the horror and irony of it all; dinner, waiting for dinner. There were many more. The pages were filled with pictures from beginning to end, each drawing stamped with the same signature in the bottom right corner: Plain Jane. The name actually made me giggle. Jane was anything but plain and with these drawings her sense of humor would carry on, even in death. I decided I’d keep them or maybe even post them up as I continue my journey, however long or short it may be. Those of us who had the lucky misfortune of still being alive could use a little humor in our lives, what with all the death and destruction we had quickly become numbed to in the past few days. I carefully placed the notebook inside the large front pocket of the backpack and headed for the Jeep, slightly more at peace than I had been a few minutes earlier. I tried to enjoy the quiet for as long as I could because I knew the second a twig snapped in the distance or a scream echoed from nowhere in particular, it was right back to pounding hearts and puckered buttholes.

  My somewhat tranquil state of mind quickly melted away once I got back to the Jeep and found several zombies rustling about, gathering at the downed tree that had stopped us from going any further up the trail. The aud
ible hum of their brethren still echoed through the valley and I suspect they were trying to join the swarm but they seemed to be perplexed as to how to accomplish that. Luckily they all seemed to be of the shambling variety but my senses remained hyper alert for any of the fast ones, knowing how quickly they can come at you with little to no warning. I used the cover of the bushes and low hanging tree branches as I searched for a rock at my feet. Once I found the largest one that I could still manage to throw, I sent it flying for the edge of the forest road. It hit the lip of the road and went cascading down the steep canyon below, bringing with it a bunch of rocks, dust, and most importantly, noise. One by one, they all shambled over to it, hoping for a meal. And one by one they all clumsily stumbled over the loose-gravel edge of the road, except for the last one. It took three others in front of him making the same mistake for this one to realize that walking closer to the edge probably wasn’t the best course of action. But he still stood there at the edge, his brain seemingly caught up in some remedial math problem as he weighed his limited options. From my angle it almost looked as if a look of pain crossed over his face as he tried and failed to fit that square peg into the round hole.

  He may have looked like another dead moron but to me he was an undead Einstein, questioning the order of things, trying and failing to change the status quo. I wasn’t really in the mood to allow him the time for that light-bulb moment where all the sudden everything made sense for him. I found another rock and aimed it at the space between his shoulder blades hoping to give him the final little push he needed to go join his buddies. My foot slipped slightly as I winged it at him which got his attention. As he turned around the rock bashed into the side of his face, breaking the skin away and leaving his jaw hanging several inches lower than it had been a second ago. He danced slightly as he attempted to keep his balance but once one of his feet caught hold of the gravelly edge, gravity slowly but surely took over. I stood up to watch him fall, hoping to get a better view of his hilarious little prance and tumble, but at the last second he saw me, a look of surprise overtaking his face as he fell. I walked down the grassy edge towards the Jeep as he disappeared from sight but as he fell he made the same call I had heard from the speedy hunter a few seconds before one of his buddies almost ate my shoulder for breakfast. I turned around quickly this time, ready and waiting, scanning my surroundings for any movement. Luckily I saw or heard nothing other than the slowly dissipating sound of dead meat tumbling down the forest road canyon, hopefully hitting every sharp branch and blunt boulder along the way.

  I rushed to the Jeep and closed the door behind me as quickly as possible, wanting to escape this particular nightmare while I still had plenty of daylight to work with. I reached down and pinched the wires together like Ricky had showed me but the engine didn’t turn over. I tried several more times until I realized the clicking sound that it kept making meant the battery was completely dead. I looked at the steering column and noticed that the small screwdriver that Ricky had used to crack the steering column was sticking out of the ignition. I rolled my eyes as I realized Jane, being left alone in the Jeep with Zoe for too long, probably got bored and scared and wanted to see if she could scan the radio for any signal. She had used the screwdriver to turn on the auxiliary power but had then forgotten to turn it off, effectively turning the Jeep into a big red metal tent. I looked in the rear view mirror at all of the supplies, the supplies that I know I have no way of taking with me unless I somehow find another car or a new battery and lug it back to this location. Either option involved a shit-ton of hiking, of being prone once again to the hunger of the undead.

  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs or maybe rip the steering wheel from the column but instead I just took a deep breath and reclined the seat back as far as it would go. I shut my eyes and tried to think of the ocean, imagining the waves soothing me into a peaceful sleep as I burrowed my hands and feet into the warm sand, my head propped up on a piece of weathered driftwood. But even in my daydreams, the dead seemed to litter the landscape. I couldn’t help but imagine a pack of them slowly rising out of the ocean, all of them making that disturbing humming sound as they honed in on my location. Suddenly I’m buried up to my neck, my head literally on a platter made of compressed sand as I can do nothing but wait for them to kneel down and crack my skull open like a coconut as they fight and paw at one another to get first crack at the delicacies within. I could do nothing but open my eyes and laugh. The dead consumed every part of my psyche whether I wanted them to or not. That’s the real power of these things. Even when they don’t have you, they have you. They may not be aware of it but I certainly am.

  I laid there for several minutes staring at the tattered ceiling of the Jeep, wondering what my next move should be. Suddenly, Doc’s bunker seemed to be much more appealing than it was a few short minutes ago, regardless of the fact that it was currently being used as a makeshift burial ground. I could manage a way to get the bodies out I thought, then maybe stay safe until I got some answers from either the TV or the radio in the Ranger’s tower if it managed to survive my bout of anger earlier. I could just stay tucked away down there in relative safety until the thundering horde I had seen through the telescope trampled overhead and just kept on going, unaware of the meal right beneath their decaying feet. But how long before cabin fever set in? Before I started talking to the walls. Before I began conversing with inanimate objects and tasking them with entertaining me, imposing strict penalties if they failed to do so. I suspect I wouldn’t last more than a week. But then again, a week probably seems more like a year these days, time being the precious commodity it is.

  I looked into the rearview mirror and then turned over my right shoulder as I surveyed the gravel road. The safest thing I could think of that would get me down this small mountainside in one piece would be to put the Jeep into neutral and attempt to steer it in reverse all the way down the winding road. At least that way it would make it a little easier to find another vehicle and come back and hotwire the Jeep. But then again, with all of the hard braking it would take to avoid tumbling over the cliff, the brakes on this old 4x4 would probably be toast. In my mind, I chalked up the Jeep as a loss but at least it still had some utility left in it. It would get me down off the side of this mountain and hopefully give me a chance to get to the coast before it was too late. Though I did have the distinct feeling that I was about to take a nosedive straight from the frying pan and into the fire. Not much I can do about that. I imagine pretty soon it’ll all be fire for as far as the eye can see.

  I thought about getting out and looking over the road some more to make sure I took the right path but it seemed rather pointless. It reminded me of buying my first skateboard as a kid. No matter how many times I examined the shoddily made ramp that my friends and I built, the whole thing was destined to fail once that first nail made contact with the disturbingly thin piece of plywood tasked with “propelling” me into awesomeness. Inevitably the rest of the day was filled with skinned knees, bruised elbows, and battered pride as I attempted to come up with a clever story that would somehow convince my parents not to take my skateboard away mere hours after its purchase. Simply put, I had a feeling this wasn’t going to work out. But I would at least cover as much ground as I could before the going got too tough. Considering that this little ruse amounted to my hastily concocted Plan B, I didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  I gripped the wheel with my left hand and took a deep breath as I prepared to shift into neutral and set this beast on what would probably be its last voyage. Before I could exhale, another hunter slammed into the driver’s side window, its jaws snapping and body writhing in a herky-jerky motion as it battled the virus that seemed to be swiftly consuming its DNA. I clumsily managed to lock the door and without thinking, jammed the shift knob into neutral. Nothing happened. After bloodying what was left of its decaying fingers trying to tear through the window, the hunter jumped onto the hood and began trying its luck with the windshield. He
may not have been a quick learner but the speed with which it hopped up onto the hood sent pains through my stomach and caused me to bite the inside of my cheek. The taste of blood that immediately followed seemed to reboot my brain. I looked down and realized the emergency brake was still up. I thumbed the release and pushed it down, my clammy hand almost sliding off the handle before it had been fully depressed.

  Slowly, the Jeep began to lurch down the hill. The hunter stopped scratching at the window and for a brief second we made eye contact. The look on his face seemed to be a mixture of confusion and adoration as if he were saying “well played, human.” My foot hovered over the brake pedal as I stared into the rear view mirror, trying and occasionally succeeding to avoid looking at the zombie on the windshield. If this thing still had any juice left in the battery, I’d probably turn on the windshield wipers to distract him long enough to pick up speed and then slam on the brakes while he was still mesmerized by the rhythmic back-and-forth of the wipers. Unfortunately I didn’t have that option. A rearview mirror had never felt so small, its limited field of vision clouding my mind as I constantly reminded myself to flip my sense of right and left, the optics of the glass inverting my world and playing tricks with my already mediocre sense of direction. Rewiring my brain, especially now, wasn’t coming easily. The Jeep had really picked up speed now and the hunter began furiously pounding at the windshield with bloodied fists, unfazed by the series of bones piercing the flesh of his hands. In an attempt to quell the panic boiling up inside me, I decided to scrap the mirror in favor of looking over my shoulder as the Jeep approached the first bend in the road. I tapped the brake and overcorrected to the wrong side as my mind tried to shake off the confusion of seeing things normally once again. I tried to right it but it was too late. I could feel the right front and rear tires giving into the unforgiving edge of the road. Just as the Jeep’s center of gravity shifted to the right, I grabbed my backpack, threw open the door and jumped out, attempting to roll into the ground and failing miserably as my bum shoulder once again took one for the team.