by Brown, TW
Sergeant (according to the three chevrons) Locket opened his mouth, and out came that sound. Peter had stumbled back and into the arms of another soldier who had been torn open and had stiff, blackened entrails hanging down from an ugly hole in the middle of his stomach…or where his stomach should be.
He’d heard the reports that massive head trauma seemed to be the only effective method to dispatch these abominations. Considering the injuries he’d personally witnessed these things enduring without so much as a flinch, he had no reason to doubt those reports. To that effect, he’d been carrying an M1 with a bayonet mounted and in the fixed position.
Jerking away from the young soldier with his guts on display, Peter had scooted on his butt a few feet to distance himself from the two things coming his way. He was a little amused by how both of them brought their arms out and began their slow shuffle towards him. Both had their mouths working, dark saliva dripping down their chins. Sergeant Locket let loose with that hair-raising cry and the other—his shirt had been torn away leaving him nameless—chimed in with a dry, hollow moan.
Climbing to his feet, Peter had cocked back, and then jammed the dark metal of the bayonet into the eye-socket of No Name, then Sergeant Locket. Just that quick, it was over. From that point, he’d been even more cautious. After all, what the hell could he have been thinking? What would a baby be doing on a National Guard Armory?
He methodically swept the facility. His first priority was making certain there were no threats inside the fence. While he did that, he made a note of where everything was situated. Then, he’d chosen his vehicle and located the keys. Credit the military with having everything in its neat and orderly place.
There were pallets stacked with cases of MREs. He’d tried the assorted “flavors”. None of them would ever be confused with mom’s Sunday dinners, but at least he wouldn’t have to resort to mudfish or kitty-kabob for a while. Admittedly, he had hoped to find one that tasted good, then he could load up on that particular variety. Oh well…
After selecting the M1 and the .45 caliber, semi-automatic pistol as his firearms of choice, he familiarized himself with the manuals for servicing and cleaning both. As a farmhand and eventually a medical student, he’d been well educated in the importance of proper cleaning and maintenance of one’s tools or equipment.
He loaded in a few thousand rounds for each weapon as well as a half-dozen spares. They could come in handy if he met other individuals and added them to his army of one. Also, it didn’t hurt to have spare parts.
His next task was to fashion a decent hand-held weapon. Guns made noise. Noise brought more of those walking horror movie posters. Peter had pondered that thought for a few minutes. Hadn’t there been movies about this highly improbable and ridiculous scenario. As a medical student, he’d not been able to enjoy the fiction. It flew in the face of everything he knew about science, biology in particular. His memory flashed an image of Private No Name.
Impossible.
Yeah, he thought, impossible. Only…tell that to Dr. Mullen. She was probably still pawing at the windows of her pretty, white Lexus. Stuck inside forever; or until somebody bashed her brains in.
Peter considered his armament: M1 with bayonet; twin military-issue .45 caliber Navy Colt pistols; a twelve-gauge shotgun; a three-foot hardened fiberglass handle with an iron spike mounted like an axe head; and a long cutlass that he’d found mounted on the base commander’s office wall. At first he’d thought it would be strictly for decoration. The heft of it when he’d pulled it down changed his mind. It turned out to be a very sturdy and fairly well-balanced blade.
His last find hadn’t really been a “find.” Rather, it was a map of Ohio. The kind you could pick up in any gas station. He used it to figure out which direction to head. Actually, it had been decided by a coin toss. The biggest thing was to put Columbus in his rearview mirror. Perhaps if he could make it to the Atlantic, he could find a boat and head for an island.
He finally reached his vehicle. The sun was rising and he wanted an early start. There was no telling what he would find once he got out on the road, but he didn’t really feel safe staying here much longer. There’d been huge explosions in the city. He’d seen them in the distance as he’d approached. It hadn’t been enough to force him to turn back at the time. He’d been desperate. Those fires still appeared to be burning several days later.
Climbing in, he turned the key, shut the door and pulled his seatbelt across his lap. Out his front window he could see the fence. A pair of those things turned, drawn by the sudden sound. One of them was wearing the tattered remains of a Bengals jersey. Peter floored it, aiming for the center of the fence and the two monstrosities standing outside, clutching the gate.
“Browns rule!” he yelled as he plowed through, sending the gate, as well as the dead Bengal fan, flying.
***
Garrett stood at the heavy, wrought iron gate, staring at the growing crowd gathered on the other side. Perhaps he should do something about thinning out their numbers. Not that those things could break down the security gate. It was more about the fact that The Toy seemed to know a lot of them by name. Something about that annoyed him.
Crouching down, he looked into the hideous eyes of a girl about the same age as his plaything. It was pressed up against the bars by the crush of bodies gathered behind, all straining to come forward and try in vain to reach the living person they craved to sink their rotten teeth into. In all the pushing, pulling, and jockeying for position, the girl had lost most of her clothing with the exception of a ragged black bra and some disgustingly stained panties that seemed to be welded to the skin. He reached out, swatting aside one cold, dead arm and poked the small, budding breast. The indent of his finger stayed after he pulled away, avoiding the thing’s attempt to grasp at him. It feels like thick mud, he thought.
Picking the fireplace poker up from where he’d set it against one of the brick columns that marked either side of the gated entrance, he jammed it through the right eye of the pitiful thing. The body slid to the ground and another stepped into its place.
Standing, Garrett looked over the agitated mob. Several sets of arms—many missing one of their matching number— thrust towards him like a wall of uncoordinated snakes. Faces smashed against the iron gates heedless of shattered cheeks, busted teeth, or bent noses. He saw what might’ve once been a young Latino man and drove the poker into its face.
Again and again he tried to select ones that sounded like people The Toy had mentioned, or that he knew in his heart she paused to look at whenever they were outside. The bodies began to pile up, but the ones still mobile weren’t smart enough to move them out of the way. Garrett stopped when he noticed that two bodies were now stacked one atop another and a trio of those things were now standing a full head and shoulders above the others.
He’d have to solve this problem. He was in no hurry to leave this comfortable little haven. Here, behind these walls, he, Garrett James McCormick, was king. He was the master of an island of his creation, separated from the ocean of terrible monsters by a fence that would deny them until the flesh finished rotting off their bodies. From here, he could launch his raiding missions and retrieve all he would require. Here, he would break the will of The Toy. And perhaps, over time, she might even be able to be molded to serve him properly. Perhaps, over time, she would want to serve him properly.
Turning his back on the wall of arms, Garrett walked back to the house. He still marveled at its size. It was bigger than the entire apartment building he and his mother had lived in…before the terrible parade of boyfriends began.
Garrett stopped, tilting his head to one side. He had a vision that made him pause. The Toy was standing in the open main entry door. She was wearing a pink dress and white apron. Under one arm was a large mixing bowl which she was stirring slowly. She saw him and smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for you, honey,” she said, stepping forward. Garrett leaned forward to kiss her and stumbled in empty
air. The vision was gone.
He spun, looking everywhere, but he was alone. The only “people” in sight were the horrible creatures down at the entry gate. Well, he thought as his face slipped into that harsh scowl he wore more and more often as his inexplicable anger seemed to grow every day and consume him further, he knew where the real flesh-and-blood version of his vision was at this very moment.
“Time for another lesson, bitch,” Garrett snarled as he stomped up the stairs.
***
Kirsten leaned against the wall. Its coolness soothed her raw, burning cheek. Of all the abuse The Big Man inflicted, it was the regular slapping of the face that angered her. Sure, there were vile and degrading things, too, but those fostered feelings of shame and violation. The face slapping flat-out pissed her off.
Kirsten wasn’t stupid. She’d known about sex. Even some of the weird stuff. She hadn’t been brave enough to let any of the boys do much more than a little rubbing and squeezing, and she’d absolutely chickened out when it came to touching their—
She shuddered.
The Big Man had told her last night that she would be putting that disgusting thing in her mouth again. He would be holding his knife against her temple, and if she tried to do anything like bite him, well, then he’d be sticking that knife into her head. She’d given it serious thought all day. Would dying be so bad?
No, Kirsten scolded herself, you can’t think that way. The Big Man would probably survive. And then he would find somebody else to hurt. She’d already been hurt in about every way possible. She wouldn’t let this happen to somebody else.
Shifting her weight a little, Kirsten tested the rough twine that bound her hand and foot for probably the hundredth time. It tightened and bit into the already raw flesh of her wrists and ankles. She winced but didn’t cry. It had been days since she’d actually cried. It was like her body had gotten used to the pain…pain from abuse…pain from violation…pain from hunger and thirst. Besides, she’d quickly learned that, when she cried, it made him want to do more things to her.
Lately, The Big Man had seemed to change just a bit. He still never used her name, still called her “Toy.” Only, now when he said it, it was almost like he was talking to a pet dog or cat, not a piece of poop he wanted scraped from the sole of his boot. He’d even taken her outside for walks in the sun. And while she still wasn’t allowed to wear clothes, he had given her a clean blanket at night. Even more noticeable, he’d only been hitting her during sex. The random, out-of-nowhere attacks had basically stopped.
She heard the large entry doors slam. It made her jump, which caused the bindings to bite into her flesh again. Taking a few breaths, she tried to calm down. She had to be able to empty her mind for what was surely coming. The heavy stomping sounds of the approach of The Big Man squeezed her bladder tight. Kirsten bit her lip and focused. It would be bad. It would be terrible, but eventually, The Big Man would make a mistake.
Then, she would kill him.
***
Dr. Reginald Cox sat at the desk flipping from one page to the next in the large, black binder. His first phase of tests had gone well. The good news was that of any common animal likely to be encountered—dogs, cats, horses, sheep, rats, cows, chickens, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, pigeons and crows—only dogs mutated when exposed to the infection. (He still hadn’t been able to classify it.) Of those animals—besides dogs—only cats and sheep carried the disease and could transmit it to others. Of course, Dr. Fox had already proved cats could be infected, pass on the infection, but not mutate.
He’d run the tests on the eleven visibly unchanged animal subjects. Only cats and sheep had shown the ability to transfer the mutation. Those two subjects had been dissected and studied until there was almost nothing left of the samples. Only one remained.
Dr. Cox walked into the clean room. The smell of disinfectant burned the back of his throat. He’d been around death so much that clean almost seemed foreign. Walking from one set of monitors to the next, he had no need to open the shuttered doors on the far wall. Besides, he was most curious to see how these creatures reacted with no outside stimulus.
The first monitor showed a misty image. This was actually the most interesting. It was a water-filled tank. A single zombie stood in one corner. In fact, it didn’t seem that this particular subject had moved for the past three days. None of that was particularly exciting to Dr. Cox. What was, however, was the fact that this specimen had been totally submerged for five days with seemingly no ill effects. In two days, he would let that tank drain and flood in seawater.
The second monitor was a puzzler. This was a simulated, highly humid environment. Yet, the decay process was not accelerating. Why not? Dr. Cox tapped the center of the monitor screen. The next was a very arid simulator, still nothing. These things did not react in any way conducive with science.
“Science!” Dr. Cox laughed. The dead were walking. They were eating people—whether they had a stomach or not—and spreading the infection. This infection was communicable in the same manner as any other blood-born pathogen. Beyond that, nothing else synced up.
He sat down at the expansive desk full of monitors, data entry stations, and a totally useless communication center, and pulled his last candy bar from his pocket. He’d saved this one for a special occasion, only there didn’t seem to be any of those on the horizon. He took a bite and tried to simultaneously savor the clean air and the sweetness of chocolate.
Of course, he thought as he chewed slowly, there was one tiny possibility. He finished his candy as slowly as possible. Pleasures had been almost nonexistent in these past several weeks. Finally finished, Dr. Cox got up, walked to the sink and washed his hands. Taking one more breath of the clean air, he stepped into the interlocked sally-port. Closing one door triggered the automatic mister. After five minutes, he was able to open the second door. He stepped out and it closed on its automatic hinge, the hiss of the door sealing echoed in the empty corridor.
He walked into the lab, trying not to let the stench curdle the chocolate in his stomach. He walked past all the bays. Each had contained an assortment of specimens. The last bay still had its curtain drawn. Taking a deep breath, then promptly choking on the sudden rush of stink that coated his throat like partially congealed shortening, he opened the curtain.
Walking over to the last uninfected specimen, Dr. Cox picked up the clipboard. He paused at all the monitoring devices and confirmed the readouts. Reaching over, he rolled the thumbwheel on the IV.
“Wake up,” he glanced at the chart and smirked, “Jane.”
***
The Jenifer-zombie stood on the gently rolling deck of the boat. Unaware of rain, unaware of wind, it simply stood. The transition from day to night meant nothing. The fact that there had been three others standing beside it for ten days went unnoticed. A wave had taken two yesterday morning. The other had fallen backwards down the open hatch. Its legs had broken in several places and now it simply lay on the carpeted deck in three inches of water. It’d had one arm torn off when it had tried to fight off the Jenifer-zombie while it was still human.
As the sun rose high in the sky, the Jenifer-zombie stood. Birds circled above, but would not swoop down. Even they sensed the wrongness of the greyish thing. It smelled like the carrion they would’ve normally fed on. But this was different.
Wrong.
The Jenifer-zombie stood as the hot orb sank into the arc of the horizon once more. Only, this time, that arc was jagged. Not the smooth line of the sea. This was the hotel-pocked vista of Miami. Under the dull glow of the moon, the boat ground into the sand. The Jenifer-zombie lurched forward and pitched over the side.
An hour later, a thin figure still resembling a small female staggered from the surf. Several times, the form was knocked over. But, eventually, its feet found the soft sand of the beach.
The Jenifer-zombie arrived in Florida to the notice of nothing more than an alligator that recognized it as something to avoid.
&
nbsp; ***
“Are you sure this will work?” Mackenzie climbed out of the cab of the old truck.
“Absolutely not.” Juan walked around and pulled the tarp back from the bed.
“Then remind me again why we’re doing it.”
“Because,” Juan looked at the large propane tank to ensure that the bundle of flares were still securely attached, “I don’t have a jackhammer.”
“If all you end up doing is starting a big fire—” Mackenzie unscrewed the caps on the two fifty-gallon drums that were full of kerosene.
“Then we have plenty of stuff on the boat and we can go someplace else,” Juan cut her off. He’d heard this same gripe at least ten times just on the two-mile drive from the Simms’ farm to the bridge.
“This is the only way those things can get on the island,” Juan recalled seeing a few fall off a pier and quickly added, “at least in any big numbers.”
“Here comes my mom.” Mackenzie turned at the sound of the approaching engine. The tan Range Rover came to a stop in the dirt parking lot of the small grocery store. Margaret got out, leaving the driver’s side door ajar, and sprinted for the younger pair.
“This can’t be good at all,” Juan mumbled as he instinctively unshouldered his rifle.
“Boats!” Margaret yelled as she began running up the inclined road leading to the bridge.
“Are they landing near the farm?” Mackenzie asked before Juan could get the words out.
“No.” Margaret was laboring now, her breathing coming in gulps. “Too…big…like…cargo…ships!”
“Are they stopping?” Juan re-shouldered the rifle. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t be shooting anything right this minute.