by Dan DeWitt
Now, it allowed Orpheus to look over the wall in relative safety. He had a good angle on a decent portion of the living room, and he watched Ethan thin the herd below without being detected. Orpheus had definitely had worse times in his life.
He said, "Light 'em up, kid," and watched the male targets fall first.
The gunshots continued, but weren't coming as frequently. Ethan was being more selective with his targets.
Still, Orpheus couldn't see his desired target. He weighed the risks and determined that he needed a better look. He readied his weapon and crept down three steps. On the third, he saw her.
Janine.
His personal patient zero.
He'd been ten feet from her when she turned. There was no doubt that she'd never been bitten. It was pretty easy to see. She was dressed for a pool party, and was barely covered up. The memory was crystal clear in his mind. She was fine, she fell ill, she died, and she came back. All in half a minute. When he compared what had happened to Falcone and Ethan's story about the woman in the theater, he came to the conclusion that she had to be one of the alpha zombies.
He needed her. Some of her, anyway.
He intended to retreat to the top of the stairwell and tell Rachel who to not shoot, and then he realized that something was off. He pulled the photo out of his pocket.
Fuck me.
In the photo, she was brunette. Orpheus assumed that was her natural hair color. But at the party, as now, she was blonde. He tried to quietly raise Rachel on the radio, but he kept getting swallowed up by gunfire. He watched a round pierce Janine's clavicle, just to the left of her throat. It twisted her backwards momentarily, but she fought through it and approached the window again. If Ethan was sighting in on her, he wouldn't miss the next shot.
Orpheus held the radio to his mouth. He could either be heard by no one, or everyone, but he had to decide instantly. Circumstances being what they were, he made the only choice he could. He screamed into the radio, "CEASE FIRE, GODDAMMIT!!!"
The shots stopped immediately, but he had no time to celebrate, because the eight zombies in his living room (seven female, Ethan had missed a male), all turned their eyes to him.
He could now say with confidence that properly motivated zombies could and would climb stairs with alarming alacrity.
He screamed another command into the radio as he retreated to his bedroom doorway. "Breach the fucking house now!"
O
Rachel heard the cease fire order, and tapped Ethan on his shoulder. He stopped firing immediately. Even through the ringing in his ears, he'd heard his father's transmission. It sounded almost panicked. As soon as the bullets had stopped firing, the zombies turned away from the window and disappeared out of sight.
Ethan and Rachel were moving even before they heard the second order. Neither one of them bothered with dropping back into the Jeep and leaving via the doors. They simply hopped up onto the roof and down to the pavement, hitting the ground running. Ethan opened the door and Rachel entered, ready to clear the room.
There were no zombies on the first floor, but there was a tremendous commotion coming from the second. They ran to the stairs and almost tripped over two zombie corpses that were sprawled on the landing. A single flip flop leaned against the wall, and its match was missing. The third zombie they almost tripped over because it wasn't yet dead and it shot out an arm in an attempt to grab Ethan. Rachel fired into its skull while on the move and was the first to reach the top of the stairs. There were only three zombies left in the house, and they were throwing themselves against Ethan's parents' bedroom door. Something behind the door was putting up tremendous resistance, but the combined will of the zombies had forced a gap wide enough for a few arms to get through.
"Dad!" Ethan yelled. "We're firing! Stay low!"
The zombies turned toward Ethan as soon as he shouted. The lost interest in the door and made for the fresh meat that was in the open.
Six rounds later, they were down.
Three insurance rounds to the head later, they were really down.
There was movement behind the door, and it sounded like something was being dragged across the Berber. The duo stepped over the bodies. Ethan opened the door cautiously and said, "Dad?"
His father was in the center of the room, straddling a zombie.
"Next time," he said in between heavy breaths, "we use earpieces."
O
After Orpheus had called for the breach, he heard a loud crash on the landing, almost as if someone had fallen hard. This was followed by several others. He backed into the bedroom as the first zombie, Janine, cleared the stairs. She was too close, and there was no way to get his M4 up in time. He sidestepped and stuck out his leg while he unholstered his sidearm in one smooth motion. She lost her balance and took a few steps on the way to the ground, unable to maintain her balance. Orpheus assisted her with a shove to her back, and she went sprawling through the screen door and onto the balcony.
Orpheus recognized the second zombie, but couldn't recall his name. He remembered loaning the guy his hedge trimmers once, and never getting them back. Orpheus wasted no time in putting two rounds through its skull. He kicked the bedroom door shut and threw the zombie at the foot of the door, where he hoped it would act as a wedge.
The remaining zombies hit the door, and the hardware held for the first few tries.
Orpheus intended to add his weight to the doorstop, but Janine was already on her feet and ready for more. He threw her to the ground more forcefully this time. He drove her face down into the carpet and jumped on her back. She had enough room to raise her head up and gnash her teeth viciously, but she was unable to get in a position to be a serious threat.
The door shuddered again, and this time the latch gave. The door opened a few inches but was delayed by the body in front of it.
He considered firing through the door at his unseen targets, thinking that he could guesstimate where their heads were and end it. But his kids would be coming up those stairs any second, and the rounds would be at their head level, as well.
Orpheus gritted his teeth and held his fire. If they got through, he'd have no choice but to waste them.
But only then.
He heard his son yelling at him to get down, and quickly obliged. He drove his forearm into Janine's neck and drove her face forcefully into the carpet again before going prone on top of her.
The pounding at the door stopped and he heard several gunshots. A frightening silence hung in the air, but it was broken by three more rounds.
Insurance, Orpheus thought correctly.
The door opened wide, and Orpheus sat up. Ethan and Rachel were fine.
"Next time, we use earpieces." He was breathing hard. Keeping Janine alive made the whole ordeal a lot more difficult.
"You okay?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah, I'm good. No worries. Ethan, grab a bunch of my ties. We need to secure this girl."
Ethan walked over to his father's closet and pulled a coat hanger out. Several ties were slung over it. Ethan held one up in front of him. "Why do you have a tie with penguins on it?"
"Just grab the damn ties, would you?"
Ethan brought over all of the ties on the hanger and helped his father bind the zombie's hands and feet. Then they anchored her to the bed. When she was absolutely immobile, they rolled her over on her back and compared her to the picture. The three of them stood in a circle looking down on her. Decomposition had done a number on some of her features, but at this range there was no doubt that it was her.
"Jeez, I'm glad you caught the hair thing in time. I was just about to put her down."
"I almost didn't. If I didn't have a clear memory of her face, I wouldn't have."
"I'm sorry that I didn't hear you calling us," Rachel said. "I almost screwed this up."
"Stow that shit. This is on me. I didn't anticipate every possibility. This could've been avoided with a simple earpiece. No harm, no foul."
Ethan said, "Speaking o
f which, take your clothes off."
"Why?"
"Checking for bites."
"I already told you that I wasn't bitten."
Ethan insisted. "Great. Then you won't mind humoring me."
Orpheus faced Ethan in full and challenged him. "Maybe you're forgetting who your goddamn superior officer is, Lieutenant."
Ethan didn't back down. "'Any individual who has been in physical contact with a specimen during combat, or has otherwise faced the possibility of being infected, is to submit to an immediate visual inspection of his or her person by another authorized individual. In this instance, rank is suspended until such time that the individual has been cleared for duty.' Your words, Captain."
Orpheus locked eyes with the upstart, but couldn't hold back his grin any longer. He began to unbutton his blouse. "Well done."
"That was a test?" Rachel asked.
"There are always going to be tests, Rachel. If it had been you to suggest the inspection, I would've done the same to you." He took off his t-shirt and threw it on the bed, followed quickly by his pants. Clad in nothing but his boxers, he raised his arms and stood still while his son gave him a look. "How do you think you would've done?"
"Me? I would've quoted the regulation right off the bat and then tazed you for kicks"
Ethan looked his father over. He had no bites, but a lot of ugly scars. "Jesus, Anders worked you over pretty good, didn't he?"
Orpheus shrugged as if to ask, How'd that work out for him?
"You're good, Cap."
Orpheus got dressed again. "Let's make sure that we're still alone here."
Rachel said, "We'll take care of it. You ... take a break. You look exhausted." They moved downstairs and out of sight. Orpheus heard the sound of the front door closing. Thirty seconds later, they came back up the stairs and reported. "We're good. It's a ghost town."
"So, what now?" Rachel asked.
"Get Jen on the horn. I need to clarify something. You have your phone?"
Ethan reached into his pocket and waved it.
"Get all of this. In landscape."
"YouTube, here we come." Ethan turned the phone sideways and centered his subject.
Orpheus knelt beside Janine and put a hand on her forehead. She made a few half-hearted attempts to snap at him, but they got progressively weaker with each attempt until her head just lolled back and forth. Orpheus hadn't observed this behavior before, as he'd never been in this particular situation. Did she ... no, did the virus ... recognize that it was in a no-win situation and was conserving its finite energy for another time? Or was he witnessing the batteries running down almost entirely? Someone of a more philosophical bent may have theorized that there was still something of the former self trapped inside, but Orpheus flat-out refused to believe in that particular nightmare.
He turned her head gently to the side and shined his flashlight behind the ear.
Nothing.
He turned it the other way.
There it was.
A tiny scar, in exactly the same place as it had been on Falcone's.
Orpheus's hand flew to his mouth. "Holy shit. She was right. Holy shit." He managed to compose himself. "Get a pic of this. Get a bunch, flash, no flash, sepia toned for all I care."
Ethan laid down on his stomach perpendicular to the zombie. He took several shots. Once he confirmed that he had some clear ones, he showed his father, who nodded.
Rachel said, "Jen's holding."
Orpheus took the phone and said, "You were right." He had to pull the phone away from his ear due to the ear-splitting shouts of joy on the other end. This was followed by a period of silence on Orpheus' end. "Hey, no need to apologize. I'd be excited, too. We're going to bring her back to the lab. Stay on the line in case I need you." He handed the phone back to Rachel, and they began to chat.
Orpheus knelt again and put his hands on the tie that tethered the zombie to the bed. He thought of Torres, and balked at bringing another zombie within his base.
One's bad enough. Having two just seems to be inviting disaster.
He said something that disgusted him more with each word. "Does Jen need all of her?"
Rachel looked at him. "I'm sorry?"
Orpheus kept his eyes on Janine, feeling an incredible sadness that it had come to this for the poor girl. "Do we have to bring her back whole?"
Rachel relayed the question to her friend, and seemed shaken by the answer. "Jen says no, and she assumes that you know what she means."
Orpheus closed his eyes. He almost wanted to be forced to bring her back, but now that he knew he had an option, he couldn't forego the safest way. "That's what I thought." He sighed. "Go downstairs and wait for me. Close the door."
"Dad, we don't-"
"Now."
Ethan took the hint, and they both went into the hallway. He waited until their footfalls had faded away and they were clearly downstairs.
Orpheus looked at Janine and spoke softly to her. "I'm sorry, young lady. You don't deserve any of this. But we need you."
He checked his gloves and covered her eyes with his left hand, holding her firmly in place. With his right, he withdrew the tomahawk from its sheath. He placed it against Janine's throat to mark the best trajectory. He raised it above his head and struck with no hesitation. The first blow drove the curved blade deep into her neck and nearly decapitated her. Her body shuddered briefly. The second strike easily finished the job, and the blade stuck in the floor. He left it there and moved the head away from the now-still body.
He stayed there for a moment, unable to remove his hand from her face. He just wasn't ready. He'd barely known her, but he still grieved for her, raged for her. If Jen was right, this girl hadn't just been an unfortunate victim who had gotten caught up in the outbreak.
Someone had not only done this to her deliberately, but they had used her as an instrument to kill others.
He removed his hand from Janine's face. Her eyes were mercifully closed. He assumed that they'd been forced closed as soon as he put his hand over them, and had stayed that way in death. It wasn't much to be grateful for, but it was something. He grabbed a pillow from the bed and removed its case. The head went in and he tied it off with a simple knot. The bottom was already stained from the ichor. It was a different kind of biohazard now. He'd grab a trash bag from the kitchen on the way out.
The last thought made him think, When am I going to run out of horrors?
This poor girl.
Vincent was dead. But Orpheus was sure that there were others out there who deserved a reckoning. The funny thing is that he was just about done with all of this. The zombies, the killing, the "reclamation." Now his resolve was as strong as ever. That was a mistake that someone, somewhere would no doubt live to regret.
He retrieved his tomahawk and wiped it off on the bed sheets until the blade gleamed again. It took its place by his side.
Orpheus looked around the room, taking it in. This would be the last time he'd ever see it again. There was nothing but bad memories here now. It had become grotesque.
Two steps away from the door, he saw the white album sitting on the dresser.
Jackie had been adding photos to the album on that day.
He didn't think twice about it. He tucked it under his arm and left.
At least I can take some good memories out of this shit for once.
He met the kids at the front door and led them out. They escorted him around the back of the house to get his Jeep. He put the bag and the album on the back seat, then hesitated before getting in.
The shed caught his eye. "Hold on a sec." He opened the shed door and spied the gas can on the floor. He picked it up and found that it was full.
He lugged it out and began to unscrew the top. "No sense letting any of this just sit here forever."
"That gas has got to be skunked by now, Dad."
Orpheus grimaced as he reversed the cap and attached the spout. "Wasn't talking about the gas, Ethan. And I don't need th
is to run the lawnmower. I just need it to burn."
Rachel was the first to understand and asked, "You want to torch your house?"
Orpheus nodded. "It, and everyone in it, deserve better. This," he swept his arm in a wide arc, to indicate the entire cul-de-sac, "this is a goddamn atrocity on every level. I won't just let it sit here and rot." He grew more agitated with every word. He dropped the gas can and walked several steps away, the gas can tilting on one side before coming back to rest upright. "It's just ... vile."
Rachel looked to Ethan. Both his face and silence spoke volumes in the way of assent. She picked up the can and said to her fiancé, "Find a match."
Picket Fence
When the three of them had gotten back to their vehicles, Orpheus reported the incident to Lena over the general channel for all to hear. He fudged the facts and the timeline a bit, and he certainly didn't mention his cargo. But would they believe that he got overwhelmingly pissed when he saw his house overrun by zombies and had wiped them all out?
Anyone who knew him at all would have no problem believing that. It was the easiest lie he'd ever told.
When that was done, they'd moved on to do the second post. To Ethan's credit, he treated the responsibility with the respect that it deserved and did a fantastic job. There was no question that he had thrown himself fully into this leadership position. He'd studied, he'd trained, and when his old man rose up to challenge him, he didn't blink. He hoped that his son was doing it for himself, and not out of some misguided notion that he still had to earn his old man's approval. Orpheus assumed that it was mostly the former with a dash of the latter.
For his part, Orpheus was just trying to act like he didn't have a severed head in a trash bag on the floor of his Jeep. He was looking forward to dropping it off with Jen. She'd been right on about the missing chip or whatever the hell it was. If this one was viable, he'd bet his considerable paycheck that she could learn a lot more.