by Jim Couper
With hands resting on the first rail Jesse pushed down. The insulating panel fell out and six well-dressed zombies looked up. Dirt and debris landed in their eyes and they didn’t blink. They wouldn’t have cared if hot anvils landed on them. The wires held: 12 bony hands reached up, but fell short, six throats coughed brain.
Each panel had six wires holding it. Dividing 210 pounds by six meant each wire had to support 35 pounds − as long as the weight was evenly distributed. When the poundage of his upper body rested on two supports that hung from two thin wires made of the cheapest metal man could produce, they held. Satisfied, he reached forward 24 inches so his hands landed on the next junction. Then he pulled his knees to the junction he had just tested with his hands. With all his weight resting on the rails of the drop ceiling he didn’t fall into the hands of drooling undead. Nearby, children laughed and cried.
Using the same technique he eased his way across the room towards the children until, inevitably, a wire broke and his feet fell to the hands of cannibals whose drool output doubled. One grabbed his shoe, but before it could get a hand around his ankle he jerked his foot from his runner and swung both feet forward and up to the next section of new ceiling. Now he hung upside-down with zombs dirty fingernails brushing the back of his shirt that he wished he had tucked in. Man-eaters swarmed. When he saw a space between a dim pair he swung like an acrobat on a trapeze and landed atop the partition wall of the next room. He flung his remaining shoe, hitting a zombie in the neck. A marshmallow would have done equal damage.
Children in the big room played zomb-tag. Most kids lurched around like zombies while the one who was it evaded them. When the itkid got caught they shouted, “you're diner" and someone else played the role of victim.
The two taking zombs, dressed in suits with buttons unbuttoned, staggered into the room. The short grey one made a burbling announcement that most of the kids would now go back to their parents. He singled out a small group and said they must stay. That brought a chorus of tears and cries. Doogie threatened them with a time out. He ordered Mort to do the exchange with the army supervisor while he continued his experiment in the wading pool.
35
"We're not a zombies," Victoria pleaded as the boy continued towards her with his cocked Z-D-Capper dripping Velo's dark blood. "We're just dressed like them. We're trying to help out. Believe me, we're normal people. Look, the fire department is helping us."
"You stink like them," the teen snarled menacingly.
"Listen, we talk normally. You just killed an innocent man."
"You go around looking an' smelling like a zombie an’ you gonna die." With that he raised the blades and took another step towards her.
"She's right," Victor interceded. "We live here. That's our bar with the roof smoking. You can have a free beer. Listen. I talk just like you." Victor jumped up and down and waved his arms. "Look at how I move. I'm fast and I can walk, jump and run."
"Yea, maybe. But that guy got what he deserved. That's just stupid to go around dressed like a zombie. Don’t put the blame on me. What were you thinking?"
"You should be ashamed,” Victor countered. “Velo was an outstanding member of the community. You can't mend a broken head." He started laughing: he had recently sipped captive blood.
The vamps quickly stripped off their zombie wear so they could again look as much like temps as possible. The boy went off, determined to collect his reward, with Velo’s head under his arm and his body dragging behind.
Vanessa unlocked the back door, entered the water-soaked tavern and four firemen followed. Three fire fighters opened a trap door, climbed up into the attic and busied themselves extinguishing embers. The fourth said he had to go down to the basement and inspect it for fire damage and electrical problems. Victor quickly turned on a battery-operated radio to cover cries for help that might emerge from below. He told the fireman the basement had been sealed for years and no one ever went down. Several vampires stood in front of the cellar door, which was hard to see in the dark as it was coated in the same flat black paint as the rest of the room. Victor stepped forward and firmly stated that he was an electrician and he would do an inspection as soon as he got over the death of his friend and found a way into the substructure. He showed the fire-chief Velo's wallet with his electrician's photo ID card and that satisfied the fireman. With neatly trimmed black hair and pale complexions they looked alike.
With every spark doused the firemen departed. Vaughn opened the door to the basement and water lapped at the top step: no sounds emerged from the dungeon. A flashlight scanned the black water and lit the back of a head and two shoulders, drifting face down. In the corner a pair of woman’s feet, heels up, could be seen. Several vamps who had received blood supplements from the captives giggled at the mess. With the flooding of their underground chamber by firefighters’ hoses they lost captives and future blood supply.
Cancer patients, terminally ill, octogenarians and a few brave citizens who loved children more than they loved themselves mingled with tearful parents who couldn't stop thanking them for the sacrifices they were about to make. More than one volunteer harboured a secret wish to experience a comeback as a zombie rather than encompass permanent death as a human.
Army personnel worked on the volunteers, dressing them in trendy clothes, dying their hair and generally making them look as young and fit as possible. The enemy had not specified who they wanted in exchange for the children, but the army feared that if the resurrected recognized they were getting hospital fodder, the prisoner exchange could be botched. Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich suspected the lurchers might rescind their offer if they saw a rail-thin 90-year-old leaning over a walker, stumbling towards them and coughing phlegm. Did they, like humans, prefer young milk-fed veal over sinewy dark meat from an aged workhorse? Or were brains and internal organs all the same no matter what demographic they came from?He couldn't take chances: the fittest of the volunteers would walk slowly at the front of the group. Aged and infirm would huddle at the back and help each other along. Miniature video cameras and mikes attached to several volunteers would broadcast the inside story from the school.
When the Colonel had prepped sufficient volunteers he hoisted his hailer and announced his readiness to make the swap. Doogie's voice immediately asked, "How many yoou give?" The Colonel told him he had 53 although he wanted to say 75. School records and a list of names from parents put the hostage count at 75. He doubted zombies could count, but he couldn’t take that chance. The fat one had said he wanted to exchange half. Pushing the number to 53 was a bonus. Could a zombie divide 75 in half? What would he do with the remainder? Would he treat that unfortunate literally and make it into a half the same way Liberty was made less than whole?
Fifty-three volunteers slowly did a funeral march halfway across the school's large yard with armed soldiers at their side. From the other direction came 53 children accompanied by 12 well-dressed creatures who could be identified from a distance as zombies because of their stoop and plodding gait.
With whoops of joy the children took off towards parents who rushed across the field to wrap them in their arms. The forlorn group of volunteers continued into the school. Children still held hostage eliminated thoughts of an assault.
Doogie singled out a plump middle-aged woman and a pudgy older man from the school staff for his experiment. Teachers, custodians and clerks armed themselves with brooms and sports equipment. A gaggle of zombies pushed its way towards the two selected and met a barrage of batons, hockey sticks, javelins, vaulting poles and tennis racquets. Javelins did most damage, piercing chests, while poles punctured a couple of eyes and racquets gave a waffle appearance to faces. Two guinea pigs were dragged off by Doogie’s henchmen, thrown into the pool and held underwater until they stopped floundering and foundered. Doogie shared Mort’s fear of water and kept his hands clean and dry while assistants did the dirty work. Wires from flashlights, cell phone and low-voltage devices led to the water and Doogie cautiously
immersed their live ends and backed away.
Mort ushered the new group of ailing volunteers into the same room as the school's staff. Doogie, abandoning his experiment, singled out a jaundiced man, a lady who could barely walk and a cancer patient with no hair and shoved them towards a corner of the big room. “Foood," he bellowed.
The infirm trio hardly had time to recite the first line of a prayer before a hungry horde swarmed them. Doogie held back those without brains and stomachs, telling them they were wasting their time. The words meant nothing, yet they held their instincts in check while fellow eaters tore like ravenous ravens, slurping, spitting, drooling and pushing to get hands and face in first. Hunger was so great they even pulled apart tasteless lungs and hearts too tough to chew. Diseased parts and aged organs slid down without complaint. Tire irons and rocks were not available in the school so zombies opened skulls by hoisting bodies by the ankles and whacking heads against the brick wall. Teachers turned away from thumping noises and away from the rivers of blood and matter that trickled down walls.
When craniums cracked the creatures pried open skulls with fingers and pushed forward to be first into the soft organs of thought. The trio died with dignity, going down without whimper, protest, plea or tear.
From the top of a wall Jesse heard the commotion from the gym and feared what was happening. The massacre of ill and elderly sickened him. Never had he known such an outrage; such a grizzly, extinguishing of human life. No drunken, tattooed motorcycle gang had ever acted so ruthlessly.
The majority of children had been saved, he realized. And the rest would also be saved when he found a way. The way did not come to him in a flash of brilliance. The building throbbed with undead and from both sides of the wall they stared up at him and slobbered, waiting for a single false move when they could get the slightest grip on shoe lace or shirt tail. Changing clothes with the hostages was brilliant strategy, Jesse conceded. It compounded his difficulties. The two groups mingled and only by looking closely at rotting flesh on faces and hands could he distinguish reanimated from temp. The stench that permeated the school no longer had source or direction, it just overwhelmed. Although zombies stooped and walked with a lurch and a shuffle, and blood stains ruined suits and dresses, they blended sufficiently. For the most part they milled about pretending to be something they were not and could never be in their wildest dreams: teachers. The children acted as children, oblivious to danger, playing, occasionally crying for a parent, but quickly forgetting when a friend suggested a new game. Jesse desperately wanted to continue talking to a zombie, but both the fat one and the tall, quieter one had moved out of sight.
The desperate sounds of zombies devouring three volunteers make Jesse think they had exceptional hunger, but maybe that’s what being arisen was all about. Maybe that’s how they always ate, even at KFC. What did he know about zombie etiquette, about cannibal manners? Don’t pick your teeth; wipe your chin; elbows off the corpse; chew 20 times before you swallow. Perhaps he could use their hunger to his advantage if he could act as a decoy while the children fled. Having his bones picked clean scared him half to death.
The only door leading from the children’s room to the outside had three ugly lurchers guarding it. The same number stood outside. He wished he hadn’t lost his shoes: running would be a problem. The only way to get outside required backtracking to the gym and lowering himself by rope to the grass. Retracing his way across the drop ceiling had a fear factor he couldn’t face. The heat would be unbearable a second time inside the tin and no cooling sweat remained in his body.
36
Jane and Donald paced edge of the schoolyard as if on the sidelines of a year-end high school football game: score tied, fourth quarter. Unfortunately the scoreboard said Visitors dominated Home Team by a catastrophic margin. A comeback? Only if they recovered a fumble, intercepted a pass and completed a couple of Hail Marys.
Loving parents’ arms enveloped the lucky children who had been granted freedom. Everyone assumed selection was arbitrary and didn’t notice that parents who allowed their kids to watch TV, eat junk food and lead sedentary lives were the ones with tears in their eyes. Zombies chose those they would enjoy most if no more exchanges occurred.
Cameras attached to hats and lapels of volunteers broadcast shaky, unsettling video of senior citizens being eaten alive. Particularly galling were close up images of an elderly woman mouthing the words I love you while zombies unzipped her abdomen, ripped out bloody organs and ate them. Like the others, she retained her dignity and didn’t scream for help or beg for mercy. She could have knitted socks while the beasts followed their instincts.
Thoughts of volunteering crossed Jane’s mind and she imagined that she too would go down honourably, with a smile, and a thanks for the wonderful years above ground. Her will specified cremation, although she had made no arrangements. If a second life awaited it would have to be in heaven.
With fascination Jane had stared at talking zombie Mort and wondered what went on in his demented head. Did he know what he was doing? He had been given a beautiful chance at a second life. Why was he wasting it by eating people, by taking children captive? He could be an international hero by telling people what death was like. He could do talk shows and reality shows. He could probably be a sports hero with all that strength. What a wasted opportunity.
Donald, apparently reading her thoughts, interrupted, "Do you know how much dignity you'd have in that situation? I'd cry like a baby and fight like a madman if zombies were on me like hyenas on a kill."
Before Jane could offer a response her phone rang and she gasped with relief as Jesse spoke. His words came quickly and quietly without a trace of his trademark humor and sarcasm. The remaining children were within sight, he reported, and for the moment were safe. He had a plan that she should listen to before he called it in to the Colonel.
"I need a driver to ram a hole in the wall of the room where the children are being held. We should be able to get them out. At exactly the same time another truck must break through the gym wall and free the staff and maybe even the remaining volunteers. There probably will be casualties. Once the hostages are out we can bomb the whole school and annihilate the bastards. More than 100 of them are milling about here. There can't be that many more. A few at the winery waiting for some idiot to decide if they should get a trial. And maybe a few in the woods. I’m working on how to co-ordinate everything, but you’ve got the general idea."
"At least you’ve got a plan," Jane replied, "that's more than we have here. That’s way more than Mayhew has.”
“The zombies have changed clothes with the volunteers,” Jesse warned. “So when the army breaks down the wall they won’t immediately know good guys from bad. They can’t just open fire.”
There was a pause while Jane took in this additional information that indicated the enemy had the capability to think, to plot. “I understand. That’s important.”
“While soldiers stand around deciding who is who, the zombs are going to start eating,” Jesse said. “They might start with kids. The beasts will see the battering rams coming about 10 seconds before they hit the school.”
Jane answered that she admired his planning and his courage, but it was definitely a Plan B. “I wish we could come up with Plan A. I wish Mayhew would voice a strategy. How's your phone battery?"
"Good, I keep it charged. I have doubts about the plan too, that's why I wanted to run it around the track. I'm on a wall overlooking the most northerly classroom in the school, next to the side entrance. The sacks of shit know I'm here. They’d love to get a taste of me. Ring if you think of anything."
Jane jogged 50 yards to Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich’s station. He seemed single-mindedly occupied with receiving gratitudes and platitudes from the parents of rescued children. Parents of those still in captivity barraged him with questions and demanded a rescue attempt. Everything stopped as a familiar voice blasted over the speakers.
"Thanks, yoour cooperation,” a
nnounced Doogie. “Yoou saved yoour babies. We keep some. Yoou obey rooles, no harm. Yoour man is snoooping. We want him. Yoou have 15 minutes or baby foood."
The voice stopped as abruptly as it started. Jane phoned Jesse and told him he had five minutes to come up with Plan A otherwise he would have to turn himself in. Four minutes later her phone rang.
"Look at the big picture," Jesse explained hurriedly. "Adult hostages are doomed. One by one they will be eaten. I’m doomed, we knew that from the start. Sidekicks die. Listen up. Plan A. Three zombs guard the door from the kids’ room to the outside. I guess three more on the outside. Can't see, but let me know if I’m way out. No guards on door to hallway, but hall swarms with zombs. I have access to air vents. I’ll start a fire in vent that leads to kids' room. Burn rubber and tar paper. Heavy black smoke descends and reaches zombs' heads and they can’t see. Before smoke surrounds the kids' heads I jump down and lure the eaters to me, away from the outside wall. That's when Mayhew's men smash through the wall and door. They blast every maggot-faced puss-head they see. Aim for well-dressed ones. I have a white, loose T-shirt, grey slacks, no shoes. I'll be low, near the floor, beneath the smoke, herding kids out hole in the wall. At exactly the same time Mayhew’s men drive another armoured car, or tank, through gym wall and save as many adults as possible. That's plan A. Ten minutes to implement. Head for the two target walls at exact moment you see smoke through the low windows of the room at the north end. You’ll see smoke in the upper windows first, but wait for it to drop. Over and out."