“And the undead, how did you get past them? How many were there?”
George laughed. “Ha, the undead! I didn’t know they were undead at the time, Seth. At this point, I really hadn’t gotten a good look at any of them.” George dropped his gaze to the table and rubbed his temples with his hands. He moved his mouth to speak but the words just wouldn’t come out at first. “The undead… those people were dead… and the whole time I was mistaken, maybe even forcibly telling myself lies that they were only mad. Looters and bandits—whatever. All I just knew was my home was being overrun and was no longer safe. That I needed to get to my son. I had to leave. I had to. There was no other way. I HAD TO…”
George realized he had unconsciously reached in his pocket. He opened his hand and saw the note his son had left him. He turned his gaze back at Seth, and said in a weary voice, “I had to leave. Don’t you see? There was no other way.” Tears welled in his eyes and began to fall.
“Well, I’m glad you made it out alive,” Seth said, and held a hand up indicating for George to take a bit of time to compose himself. “Folks, we’re going to take a little break and come back to George’s story in a few minutes. Until then, stay tuned, and more importantly, stay alive.”
With a few clicks of the mouse on the computer, music started to play in the background. Seth took off his headphones and leaned back in the chair. “Dude, you’ve got to pull it together. People out there need to hear your story. You made it out alive. You’re offering them hope in a bad time. People need hope to survive. Not stress.”
George just shook his head and glanced over at Billy, who was busy looking through a stack of CDs on the couch next to piles of trash that had been there when they arrived. “What are we going to do? We can’t just hole up in this place forever.”
“I know that, man, but right now it’s not like we have much else in the way of options. It has only been like three days, dude. The National Guard or the military will be here sooner or later. We just got to stick it out and keep hope alive to those that might still be out there in a situation like ours or worse. Unless you’ve got a better idea, that is. I am all ears, man.”
“No, I don’t have any ideas.”
“Then, for now, this is what we’re going to do. I know that it’s hard for you to rehash all that crap, man, but it could really help some others out there to know what’s going on around them. Can I count on you to keep telling the story?”
Without saying a word, George slowly rose from his chair and walked to the window. Seth was right. People needed to hear his story; one reason, so they wouldn’t feel alone. Just knowing there are others out there going through the same thing helps sometimes. Besides, what else were they supposed to do in this hellhole? The parking lot and the alleyway were overrun with the undead.
Even with the upstairs windows closed, George caught a whiff of the stench of rotting flesh from below. With numbers like that, there was no way the barricade at the front of the building would last much longer. And with the only other exit totally blocked off by an alley infested with rotting corpses, what else could they do other than sit tight and tell stories?
5
“Hold him down, soldier. Get him locked down already.”
As Jared Clay and Rich Michaels struggled to contain the reanimated corpse in its restraints attached to the gurney, Professor Taft stood over them barking out commands. He sounded like a drill sergeant popping off order after order like it was their first week in boot camp. The cadaver they had brought in that morning was no different than the rest. Dead, rotting flesh dried out from the loss of fluids.
Though technically dead, the body thrived with some type of life. A life full of rage stemming from unquenchable hunger. While the creature thrashed about in the arms of the two soldiers struggling to lock it down, Professor Taft prepared a syringe to extract what fluids might remain beneath the skin, and more importantly, in the brain of the living corpse.
Its wide mouth snarled, and thick slobber coated its teeth in anticipation of soft flesh. The zombie’s eyes glazed over in a light milky-white substance and stared eagerly at the two soldiers. Its head was tilted up slightly contorted in an attempt to reach its prey.
The room was about the size of an average living room. The walls were solid white with bright florescent lighting that cast onto every nook and cranny from the ceiling. Other than the countertops and cabinets lining every wall in the room, there was a single table in the center. A variety of lab utensils and beakers filled with various liquids were available, as were surgical tools. The floor was a filth-stained white tile, and the room was never warmer than a whopping 68 degrees.
Taft had worked with this particular Biochemical Research Lab team for six months. This was the first time he had worked in conjunction with the military, however. He didn’t mind, the pay was better.
They always find a way to leave me with the clumsy ones, he thought as he situated a few things he needed on the table while studying the new recruits in his peripheral from across the room. Clay mumbled something to Michaels. Taft guessed it wasn’t something nice, seeing as to how it almost never was. With syringe in hand, and two rubber gloves practically down to his elbows, Taft stepped behind the two soldiers and beside the gurney.
“When I signed up, I wasn’t signing up for this shit,” Clay said.
Michaels nodded. “I know man. I’m thinking we should—”
“Are the two of you done yet? Gibbs wanted these sample tests ready hours ago, and I’m not going to be the one taking hell for any of the delays this time,” Taft said.
Michaels looked back and raised his upper lip as he stepped aside to make room at the operating table.
Taft didn’t appreciate that Dr. Gibbs commanded more respect than he. She never seemed to get crap from anyone and that annoyed him at times.
With the zombie’s gaze now shifted to Professor Taft while he stood over it, the creature began to moan and snap its teeth, and then began jerking violently.
Taft hesitated before inserting the needle into the corpse’s neck, his gaze met with Clay’s, who simply nodded and pressed down on the zombie’s forehead to secure it from moving.
Inserting the three-inch needle and pulling back on the thumb, a very dark, thick gray substance and congealed blood filled the tube.
The door burst open, and two men rushed in startling Taft, Clay, and Michaels.
“What the hell?” Taft yelled as two soldiers entered the room.
In their grasp, they had a handcuffed female zombie in tow. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and her awkward gait had her crashing into the table set in the center of the room, knocking its contents all across the floor.
Steel and glass implements collided with the tile floor. Taft’s distraction twisted the syringe, and the needle snapped off in zombie’s neck. Black, putrid blood and gray fluids shot out into the air, some found its way onto Michaels’ chest and face.
“Orders were to bring her to you for test samples,” one of the soldiers said.
“Can’t you see we are in the process of doing that here? Who ordered you to bring that thing down here now?”
“Baker did, sir.”
“We don’t need her. So dispose of it, and leave at once. Look at this mess you’ve caused. Soon as you get rid of her, you can come back and clean—”
“Professor… Professor… PROFESSOR!”
“WHAT!” He turned his attention to Clay, who knelt by Michaels.
“It’s Michaels, sir.”
Michaels, on his knees, bent over with one hand supported by the floor, and the other spastically wiping at his face, sounded panicked, “It got in my eye! It got in my fucking eye! If I turn into one of those things, I swear I’m going to eat you both!”
All gazes froze on Michaels, who continued to spit and wipe his face.
The two zombies in the room struggled to free themselves.
Taft said, “Would you help him to his feet and take him to the MED station. And the two of you, g
et that thing the hell out of here.” He pointed to the female.
With both men still staring at Michaels, the female zombie jerked free and lunged toward Professor Taft. She landed on top of him, eyes wide, and mouth even wider.
Taft fell backward and tripped over Michaels, who was being assisted by Clay to his feet. With nowhere to go but backward, Taft fell toward the zombie strapped on the gurney, reaching out in a last ditch effort to catch his balance. The gurney and the zombie strapped to it toppled over.
The weight of the woman was too much. The gurney came crashing down along with them. Using one arm against the woman’s chest, he did his best to keep her teeth from sinking into flesh, but she extended her neck closer. The putrid stench of her breath hit his face as the bowels of her rotting insides spewed into the air. One of her eyes was missing, along with a large chunk of her lower jaw skin. The black gaping hole that once held an eye was nothing more than an empty socket with fragments of bone and scratch marks where it had previously been attacked. Slobber and bloody slime poured out of her gnashing mouth down her lipless chin, bottom teeth exposed. The clatter of her teeth crashing together echoed off the cold tile floor. Bits of mucus leaked down onto Taft’s chin and shoulder as her teeth viciously chomped.
“Fucking do something, you morons!” Taft said struggling.
With guns drawn, the two men aimed at the zombie. With the zombie being pushed around by Taft, who rustled with it on the floor, neither man had a clear shot.
“For crying out loud,” Clay said as he jumped forward to pull the woman off the Professor. He grabbed her by the back of the hair, pulling her up and away from Taft. In one smooth motion, he reached for his 9mm, un-holstered it, and released the safety. A single shot from the pistol hit her one good eye. The eye exploded, spraying Taft in the face with goo. The bullet split the back of her skull and bounced around inside her cranium. The zombie immediately fell limp to the floor.
Michaels staggered to his feet a little off balance and collided with the toppled gurney behind him. Losing his footing, the restrained zombie’s germ-infested mouth filled with gnashing teeth met bone as they ripped right into the back of his ankle. Blood gushed from the beast’s mouth, violently shaking left and right.
Michaels’ scream startled both soldiers at the door. The soldier closest to him sporadically fired shots into Michaels’ stomach and chest. Collapsing to the ground on his knees with blood pouring from his mouth, Michaels weakly pulled his sidearm from its holster and fired wildly back.
With a mouth full of blood, he attempted to speak as each shot was fired, life slowly fading from his body. Blood covered the tile beneath him. His blood. “You… fu…king pri…ck.”
One shot was a direct hit to the head, sending one of the uninfected soldiers instantly to the ground. A barrage of gunfire exploded in the room again as shots were traded. Michaels finally lost all of his strength and fell to the cold floor, filled bullets.
The gunfire ended.
Taft, still on the ground next to the unmoving female corpse that had attacked him, sat wide-eyed and blood covered.
The one remaining soldier who had entered the room reached for his chest, taking away blood on his hand. With his bottom jaw hanging low, the man glanced at his blood-soaked extremity, fell to his knees, and then collapsed to the blood-soaked laboratory tile.
“I did not sign up for the crap,” Clay said.
Three men and one female zombie lay motionless on the floor. Taft and Clay stared at one another while the zombie still strapped to the toppled gurney moaned with excitement.
The zombie tied to the table now stared right at Clay as it cried out, the broken syringe still in its neck. In a fiery rage to get at him, blood and pus poured from its mouth. Clay reached up and fired two precise shots into the zombie’s head. A splatter of blood, black matted meat, and grey matter sprayed across the back of the silver gurney, making a loud pinging sound like two metal pipes colliding together. Its head jolted against it.
Taking a moment to look around the room at the carnage that had just taken place, Professor Taft stood to his feet, and attempted to regain his composure. “Why did this happened? This is a secure area and I have to approve new specimens to be brought here.” Taft removed the rubber gloves and his lab coat. “Are you hit or bitten, Clay?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Go find Gibbs, and get her ass down here right away. I am going to start cleaning up all of this shit.”
Clay holstered his weapon and disappeared out into the hallway.
Sorting through what still seemed salvageable amidst the broken glass and surgical tools that found their way to the floor, Taft couldn’t believe General Baker broke protocol. That bag of wind for a general couldn’t keep his head on straight if it was screwed on, he thought, knowing good and well he wouldn’t ever be caught dead saying something like that out loud.
With his back turned away from the five bodies that now littered his lab, Taft was too furious and irritated at the irrational mistakes of others to realize or hear the movement taking place behind him on the floor.
Michaels’ eyes opened, and his limbs began to rustle about with life. Dead, rotting, rancid life. The thing that was once Michaels slowly rose to its feet.
Taft cluelessly ranted to himself, while tinkering with the remains of his tattered workspace, and cleaning blood from his face and clothes at the sink in a corner of the room.
The decaying zombie, that was only moments ago human, lurched with outstretched arms toward the professor. Blood gushed from his torn ankle, spewed from its mouth, and several bullet holes in its chest and stomach. The quick loss of blood from the bite and shots left it looking pale and drained. Once it was only a few paces behind Taft, it let out a light, guttural moan.
Taft instantly knew that sound. The sound of dead life. A prickly ice sensation raced down his spine. He was afraid to turn around and face what waited behind him. The zombie lunged forward as Taft turned around to meet its milky-white gaze.
6
General Baker looked and played the part of being your typical military man of age, stature, and experience. He even had the scars to prove it. Seated in his elegant brown leather chair behind his exquisitely expensive desk, Baker slouched back, legs propped, and a half-smoked cigar steaming in his ashtray. A small glass of scotch complemented his smoke. The aromatic spirits lingered amidst his partially soaked mustache.
Photos of important men and events decorated the wall behind him. His Tallahassee office, actually rather small, still carried with it an overpowering sense of authority that commanded respect.
Rob Foster waited to report to the General for what seemed like an eternity of silence.
Despite the fact that Baker came across as a rather harsh and distasteful figure to his subordinates, he was in fact a diplomatic man by nature, and chose the right words to say and was eager to listen. Foster, still unsure as to which side of Baker he found more intimidating, waited for the General to respond to the report concerning Professor Taft and the dead soldiers. He knew Baker found Taft to be a prude little man who thought too highly of himself. Something Baker highly disliked and did not hesitate to share when in group settings.
“And where is Clay now, son?”
“In his quarters, sir. He was given a sedative to calm him.”
“And the others?”
“The dead are currently being properly disposed of, sir.”
“And Taft?”
“Well sir, he… he… was taken down to the holding cells for future testing, what’s left of him at least. Gibbs’ idea, sir.”
“We need to have all of the other—”
The phone suddenly rang, cutting the General off. He set down his glass and picked up the phone in front of him. “Yes… and their E.T.A?... I see…go ahead and patch me through.”
After a brief moment of awkward silence, Baker continued to speak into the phone. He kicked his feet off the table and retrieved his cigar. With a few puffs,
the tip glowed like hot embers, smoke quickly clouded the space between them. The General hopped to his feet and barked out his demands, “Once you arrive, I want a full report on civilian status and threat level of the surrounding area… NO! … The number one objective is shutting that radio station down, civilians second. Do you understand, soldier? … Good.”
Baker slammed down the phone onto the receiver. After several deep puffs on his cigar and a massive swig finishing off the remainder of scotch, he sat back down. “The chopper is about twenty clicks away from the radio station. Once we hear back from them, we’ll decide the final course of action.”
Foster wished he understood more of the situation. The last thing he wanted to see was the military overreaction and innocent lives lost. He brought a hand to the side of his head and rubbed his temple.
The General leaned forward in his chair. “Look, Rob, our job is to keep this thing from spreading any farther than it already has, and to keep the rest of the country in the dark. I don’t like it any more than you, but those are our orders. I’m responsible for seeing that they are carried out.”
“But people have the right now know the truth, sir.”
“Oh, is that your opinion, Lieutenant? Well, you don’t get paid to have an opinion. None of us do. That’s the way it is. Now, back to business, and the reason I called you into my office to begin with.”
Baker took one last long drag from his cigar before smashing the end into the ashtray. With one exaggerated exhale, a large cloud of smoke thickened the growing haze.
Foster’s eyes began to water, but he held back from wiping them. He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket, and spread it out over the General’s desk. The paper showed a complex map of the northern coastline of Florida, as well as the southern parts of Alabama, and Georgia. Red X’s marked fortified locations and blockades already in place. It was Foster’s job as second-in-command of operations to secure the infected zone and restrict incoming and outgoing transport within its borders. A job that he was eager to take on, despite his experience, or the lack thereof.
The End Page 4