In the Lone and Level Sands

by David Lovato

  Max was beginning to think he would never be ready to fire his gun.

  “I’m thinking the recoil on this thing may be a bit much for the kid to start off with,” Johns said.

  “Maybe we should give him something lighter,” Lou said. His voice sounded normal again. “At least until we can train him to use that thing properly. I’m thinking a target range will look great just over there.”

  The group walked a few yards to the campus map, a marble block outside of a building in the center of the grassy ring. Ortiz read it out loud.

  “Okay, it looks like we have the mess hall to the left, math and science next to that… We’ve got humanities and resources to the right, the tornado shelter right here in the middle of the courtyard, and the library is between HR and math-science. One big circle.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” Johns said. “Sounds well-built, too.”

  “How so?” Max asked.

  “It has a circular design,” Ortiz said. “We can clear the buildings out, and then start the shelter out small. We’ll barricade the center building, the tornado shelter. Should be perfect for our base of operations. When that’s all set up, we’ll keep the campus cleared out, and go out and collect more resources. Eventually, we can set up a big barricade outside of the buildings, around the campus, and then we have our little community started.”

  “We can keep reinforcing the walls,” Johns said. “Maybe we should do a ring system, walls within walls. And have the exits and entrances not line up, so if something gets in—”

  “It doesn’t get very far,” Max said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, gentleman,” Lou said, “I recommend for now, we focus on the task at hand.”

  “Okay,” Ortiz said. “The kid and I will go right, into the humanities and resources building. You and Johns take the mess hall. I imagine that’s where most of the zombies will be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There’s food in there.”

  Lou laughed. “Well shit, son. When you’re a zombie, there’s food everywhere!”

  “In any case,” Ortiz said, “you and Johns get through the mess hall. When you’re done, head for the MS building.”

  “Sounds good so far,” Johns said.

  “The kid and I will go through HR. We’ll all meet up in the library and clear it out together. I’ll give a signal, and we can go in from opposite sides, and meet in the middle. Once that’s done, we’ll take out the tornado shelter together.”

  “All right. Remember boys, there is no tomorrow,” Lou said. The three soldiers tapped guns together, and then they split up. Max followed Ortiz a few steps, then looked over his shoulder at the others.

  “You don’t need to look back,” Ortiz said. Max looked at him.

  “What’s all that ‘no tomorrow’ stuff about, anyway?”

  “It’s kind of our way of saying goodbye. It reminds us that we don’t have anything left to lose. And we don’t look over our shoulders. If that has to be goodbye, then no regrets. It is what it is, I guess.”

  Max didn’t feel like he had nothing left to lose. Even now, he felt like there was something he had to hold on to. He was beginning to feel the sickness in his stomach return, the burning in his eyes and the ache of a hollowed heart. Max pushed these thoughts aside.

  There is no tomorrow.

  As he thought it to himself, he still wasn’t sure he liked it. But it seemed comforting, in an odd sort of way. He decided to turn his attention away from his mind and focus on the outside world for a while.

  “You only gave us one building,” Max said.

  “You think your gun skills are good enough, yet? Which reminds me.” Ortiz took Max’s assault rifle and handed him a handgun instead, along with a few magazines. He slung the extra rifle over his shoulder like it weighed nothing at all.

  “No, it’s not that,” Max said, feeling up his new gun. “Are those guys going to be okay alone?”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Ortiz said. “There’s nothing in this school we haven’t already dealt with tenfold, I guarantee that.”

  They reached the door of the HR building. Ortiz tried to look in through the tiny window, cupping his hands over his eyes to block the glare.

  “See anything?” Max asked.

  “I see… another set of doors.” Ortiz opened the door into a small room with another set of double doors on the other side. He walked over to it and peered in through the window. This time, there was no glare to worry about.

  “Anything?”

  “It’s darker than hell in there,” Ortiz said. “But I definitely see something moving.”

  “Why didn’t they come out when they heard the gunshots?” Max asked.

  A zombie roared as it hurled itself against the window. Ortiz shouted and jumped backward, immediately aiming his gun. He didn’t fire, and Max was starting to panic, his heart still racing from the surprise.

  “Because,” Ortiz said, lowering his gun. He stared through the window. The zombie beat its hands against the door and window, roaring and pressing his mouth to the glass. He was smearing blood, pus, and saliva all over it, and his breath was fogging it up. “They can’t open doors.”

  Max stared through the glass at the zombie, its eyes burning with rage. There was nothing human in there anymore, nothing truly alive, but Max couldn’t help feeling that killing it was, in some way, wrong. He tried to ignore it.

  “This may be easier than I thought,” Ortiz said. “Okay, here’s the plan. We’re going to clear this hallway first. I can see stairs to the upper level, and I imagine anything hearing the commotion will be heading down those stairs to get us.”

  “What about the classrooms?”

  “We can worry about the individual classrooms later. First, the hallway. I’m going to open the door and fire. We’ll take care of our friend here, first.” Ortiz gestured to the zombie on the other side of the glass. “I’m going to need you to help cover me from the side, where the stairs are.”

  “I really don’t think you want to depend that heavily on me,” Max said.

  “Don’t worry. Chances are I’ll see them and shoot them before you’ve even noticed they’re there. But this will be good practice. Are you ready?”

  Max nodded. “I don’t think so, no. But yeah, I guess.”

  Ortiz smiled. “Don’t worry about it so much. You’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

  Ortiz opened the door. The zombie got half a growl out before he shot it in the face. He stepped into the hallway, motioned for Max to follow, then opened fire. Max entered the hallway and stood behind Ortiz. He pointed his gun toward the stairs to the right, but didn’t see anything. He looked to his left, down the hallway.

  “Don’t worry about that, I’m covering you!” Ortiz said. Max turned back to the stairs, and a group of zombies was rushing down them. Ortiz turned and fired at them, dropping them all before Max could even aim. Ortiz turned his attention back to the hallway.

  A few seconds took forever to pass, and then everything fell quiet.

  “Do you think we got them all?” Max asked.

  “All of the ones in the halls, yeah.”

  “Sorry about earlier.”

  “Don’t be. If I yell, it’s because I want you to hear me, not because I’m mad. Anyway, you’re going to have to learn to trust me. If I need help, I’ll tell you I need help, okay?”

  “Got it,” Max said. He wasn’t sure he could change his behavior that simply, but he made a mental note to try.

  “Okay. I’m going to run upstairs real quick and check that hallway, then I’ll come back down here. I want you to wait for me, okay? If anything happens, and you feel you can’t handle it, just call for me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll just be gone a minute. Be careful.”

  Ortiz headed up the stairs, and Max felt his fear increase with every step. For the first time in a while, he was very alone. More alone than when he woke up in the woods, and more alone than wh
en he woke up on the floor of a blown-up apartment building, ears ringing and delirious from the blast. Now, he was wide awake and more aware. More alone.

  It got quiet, and it seemed darker than before. The only light came from the windows on the doors at the beginning and end of the hall.

  Max listened for Ortiz, and didn’t hear anything from the stairs. He did, however, hear a small shuffle from the hall. He turned to look, and a zombie was crawling toward him from under a pile of bodies. It grumbled. Max thought of shouting for Ortiz, but then he had a different idea. The zombie was, after all, crawling, and wasn’t making much progress. It was a good fifteen feet away, too.

  The zombie groaned. Max lifted his gun and tried to line up the barrel and the zombie. It looked right, but he checked again, and then again. By then the zombie had moved, so he adjusted his aim.

  Max sighed and lowered the gun. The zombie moaned. Max took a breath and aimed the gun one more time. He lined everything up, then pulled the trigger.

  The shot rang loudly through the hall, and Max watched the bullet pockmark the linoleum a few inches away from the zombie. He lined up and fired again, and missed by even more. Max took a breath. The zombie was closer, and Max thought of heading out the door and waiting for Ortiz to come down the stairs and take care of it, but he shook the idea. He wanted to prove he wasn’t useless, to himself and to the soldiers. It was just one zombie, and an incapacitated one at that. He lined up again, and pulled the trigger.

  The zombie’s head exploded, but Max saw his own shot mark the ground, closer than the two before, but still no dice.

  Max turned and saw Ortiz on the stairs, lowering his gun.

  “You could’ve called me,” Ortiz said, stepping down the stairs.

  “I wanted to try for myself, first,” Max said.

  “Good. You’re learning. By the way, you’re aiming with the wrong eye.” Ortiz started down the hallway.

  “So now what?”

  “We’ll clear out the classrooms. Should be simple. Open the door, shoot the zombies, close the door. Think you can manage?”

  “I’ll try,” Max said.

  “I hate to sound rude, but if we’re ever going to meet up with the others, we’re going to have to split up.”

  “Okay, that’s fine.”

  “Great,” Ortiz said. “I’ll check the classrooms down here, and you check the ones up there. Meet me at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the hall.”

  “Upstairs?” Max said.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, it’s just… When you said ‘split up’, I thought you meant different rooms, different sides of the hall. I didn’t know you meant the whole floor.”

  “You can stay with me if you want. Lou and Johns can hold their own.”

  “No, it’s fine. I can take the upstairs.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Again, call me if you need anything. If something goes wrong, try to get to an empty room and shut the door, okay?”

  “Okay,” Max said. He headed up the stairs.

  It was darker upstairs, but as far as Max could tell, there were no zombies. He hadn’t heard gunfire while Ortiz was up there, so the hallway being empty made sense. Max swallowed his fear, pressed on, and reached the first door. He peered in through the window. The room was dark and the desks were in disarray. The only light was pouring in through a window across from the door. Max saw no motion, but he couldn’t see much of the room.

  Max took a few breaths and gripped the handle of the door. He squeezed, and then squeezed harder. His head said turn, but his hand just squeezed. Max closed his eyes, then started to turn the handle. He forced his eyes back open, turned the handle all the way, and opened the door a lot more slowly than he wanted to. He took a step forward, raised his gun, and looked around.

  The room was empty. Max backed out and closed the door.

  There was no door across from the first class because of the stairs, but the rest of the hall was divided evenly, with classrooms directly across from each other.

  Max went to the door of the room next to the empty one, grabbed the handle, and squeezed after seeing nothing through the window. He turned the handle, opened the door, and stepped in. There was a zombie in the corner of the room, and it growled as it turned to face him. Max aimed, and the zombie rushed forward.

  Max told himself to pull the trigger, but it wasn’t happening. He closed his eyes. He heard the frantic breaths of the zombie as it rushed across the room, shoving desks out of the way. Max opened his eyes. The zombie was right in front of him. He yelled as he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet went through the zombie’s head. Blood splattered all over Max; all over his clothes, all over his gun and his hands. It got on his face, some landed in his mouth. It was in his hair.

  The zombie went down. Its hands, still reaching forth, grasped and brushed against Max as it fell. They dragged along his clothes, smearing old and new blood all down them. The zombie hit the ground and stopped moving.

  Max wanted to scream. He spat the blood from his mouth. He spat again, and then again and again, and the taste was gone but the feeling was still there. He wiped his hair and face. The blood smeared and didn’t come off.

  Max looked around the room. It was clear. He slammed the door shut, then walked across the hall. His hand touched the handle, and for a moment, he thought he’d never turn it.

  The sound of Ortiz’s assault rifle exploded from downstairs. It echoed through the halls and became all Max could hear. His head was splitting. His heart began racing. For no reason he could find, Max screamed.

  He opened the door in a frenzy, stepped in, and turned. Two zombies. He started shooting, and they both fell. He shut the door and turned to the next room. He opened it, and a zombie on the floor reached for his foot, like it knew he was coming. This made Max feel strange, the closest he could think to the feeling was that it offended him. Max kicked the zombie in the face, and it rolled over. He pointed the gun downward and shot it in the head, then stepped into the room.

  Max turned, saw another zombie, and fired. He missed a few times, then hit it in the head. More blood splattered onto him. He spat, but didn’t bother with his skin or clothes.

  Max shut the door and headed for the next room. He cleared it, spat blood or just spit (he wasn’t sure), and headed for the next. He opened the door and saw five zombies. Max fired and took two out, then heard his gun click. He shut the door and reloaded. The other zombies scrambled against the window, trying to get through, unable to work the door handle. Max pressed the gun to the glass, right between one zombie’s eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  The window shattered. The zombie’s head exploded, and glass went flying everywhere. Almost all of it went into the room, but Max was sure he felt some tiny fragments land on him. Maybe it was just blood.

  The shrapnel from the glass pierced the other two zombies, who shrieked and stepped back. Max opened the door as hard as he could, knocking one of the zombies down. He shot the other, and then turned to the one on the ground. It was starting to turn toward him, but Max shot it in the back of the head. He spat air, and shut the door.

  Max went to the next room. He realized the gunfire was still going on some infinite space away, and he was still screaming, stopping only to spit.

  He opened the door. A zombie a few feet away turned and rushed toward him. Max didn’t have time to aim, so he slammed the door shut, the zombie halfway through. He held on to the handle, the zombie pinned between the wood and the metal frame, its face squashed into a twisted scowl. It reached for Max, who shot it in the face. It fell to the ground. Max entered the room and saw two more zombies. He shot one as it drew near. The blood splattered on Max’s face, and he licked his lips to clear his mouth. He fired several shots. Besides one that hit the zombie’s shoulder, all missed. Max ran out of ammo.

  He stepped out of the room to reload, but when he tried to close the door, it stopped hard
, still open. Max looked down and saw the body of the zombie from before keeping the door open, and then it was too late.

  The other zombie pounced Max, pinning him to the ground, and knocking the gun from his hand. The gunfire from downstairs had stopped, but Max was still screaming. He gripped the zombie’s neck, trying to keep its teeth away. Its hands were completely free, and they clawed and tore at Max’s clothes and sides and arms, scratching him and tearing into his clothes.

  Max turned and saw his gun, just out of reach. It was like a scene from a movie, only this was real. There would be no damn-near-magic sudden reach for the gun, no chance to aim, no nick-of-time shooting the zombie before that little bite that would ruin him forever. And the thing was empty, so it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  The zombie roared and reached for Max’s face. It dug its fingers into the skin on his forehead and tore downward. Max’s screams changed from an angry, frustrated tone to one of sheer pain. He fought with all his might the urge to let go of the zombie’s throat and reach for his wound, stop the hand from tearing his skin. The zombie’s nails scraped down his face, across his left eye, down his cheek, finally crossing his neck and scratching lighter and lighter as the zombie had trouble reaching past Max’s extended arm.

  The zombie roared and reached again, but before it could go for another round, its head exploded. Blood and bits of skull landed all over Max. He stopped screaming, nearly choking on the stuff landing in his throat. He felt a piece of bone in his teeth. He turned over, the zombie’s body still on him, and spat as hard as he could. He spat and spat, and then coughed. It took Ortiz only a few seconds to get from the stairs to where Max was, and by then Max was throwing up.

  Max started kicking and thrashing to get the zombie’s body off of him. Blood was still pouring onto him from the opened neck of the headless zombie, and he gagged and nearly threw up again. Ortiz helped get the zombie off, and Max turned over onto his hands and knees. The blood that was streaming down the side of his head dripped heartily onto the shiny linoleum floor.