Survivor Response

by Patrick J. Harris

  A dozen bodies lay sprawled across the floor as another dozen continued forth the breached door. Stanley and three remaining ZMTs flanked back, creating a line twenty feet from the computer station by the equipment cabinets. Karen threw a screwdriver back into a drawer full of tools as Paul handed her the Glock. She chambered a round, and aimed for a scraggling blonde-haired zombie, shooting its right temple. Blood and bone tore away and it spun, falling to the ground, revealing a black helmeted figure in a ripped blue shirt.

  She gasped and stepped back. “Alan, Paul. Alan’s alive.”

  Paul lowered his assault rifle and scanned the crowd of bodies, eager to spot his boss.

  “There,” she pointed with the Glock. “With the helmet.”

  He huffed in anger and fired off a pair of shots at Alan. One grazed his shoulder and the other sailed past, exploding a hole in the wall.

  Alan cocked his head and shrugged his shoulder. He sidestepped behind two snarling zombies, and used them as a shield. Behind the helmet, Alan’s voice was flat.

  “You’re dead. All of you.”

  He grabbed fistfuls of sagging flesh on one of his zombie shields and hoisted it high above his head. The zombie flailed and screamed, and Alan flung the body at the ZMTs near Stanley.

  The torso slammed one ZMT in the chest and its legs caught the other in the face. All three crumpled to the ground into a writhing pile of limbs. The zombie twisted its neck and its jaws clamped into the ZMT’s neck. He screamed as the rotten teeth tore as his throat. The other ZMT, who had shouted the arrival of the horde, now rolled on the floor clutching her head.

  “Fuck!” Stanley turned and pumped his shotgun, blasting the zombie in the back of the head. The ZMT struggled to raise his arms to his neck, and his eyes blinked as his mouth hung open. Stanley reached for a pistol and shot the ZMT between the eyes. He skipped over the bodies and helped the brunette ZMT across the room away from the onslaught.

  Karen and Paul fired shot after shot into the crowd of zombies, as Alan dodged and ran behind the wall of his undead army, weaving across the room and hurled a body at Karen.

  Karen motioned too late, and the projectile body clipped her left side. She fell, yelping at the pop of a dislocated shoulder when she hit the concrete. Her gun bounced and slid under the equipment cabinet. The zombie tumbled away, pivoted on its stomach and reached for Karen.

  Paul lunged to wrap a hand around the zombie’s ankle. He dragged it away as it screamed and its fingers clawed at the concrete floor. He fired a round into the back of its head.

  Karen sat up, and her stomach muscles tensed, straining to ignore the pinch of her dislocated shoulder. She gasped for air while her free hand swept the floor, seeking the gun.

  Seemingly out of the sky, another two-hundred-pound body of ragged flesh slammed into her arm and chest. Her head made a crack against the pavement, and the undead body tumbled over her, covering her face.

  “Karen!”

  Paul jumped over the dead zombie as a smaller body flew through the air, no bigger than a scrawny teenager. He dodged it, rushing to Karen as the body landed and slid across the floor, head first into the metal door frame, cracking its head wide open.

  Sophie’s chest shook from her furious, beating heart. The rushing blood pounded through her ears and the clacking of the spring keyboard drowned out the ensuing melee around her. Through screens of packet sniffers, she worked backwards to the source of Alan’s program, remotely commanding his zombies. The ZMT bay was receiving a rush of ingoing and outgoing bandwidth. She traced the network traffic through a vast array of relay servers and switches. Her breath drew shorter as she found the last server with a program process called Lazarus running the CPU cycles, memory, and network traffic near 100 percent.

  She typed in the command line: sudo lazarus.exe –kill.

  And hit enter.

  Thumps and thuds of collapsing bodies spread through the end of the ZMT bay. A body clawing toward Karen, its jaws wide open, smacked its forehead against the concrete. Paul, unaware of the zombies going offline, lurched for the zombie attacking Karen and heaved it behind him.

  Alan spun around watching his drones collapse one by one within the ZMT bay and into a pile of bodies and limbs outside the broken door. He spotted Sophie, turned in the chair by the computer with her face expressionless and her chest heaving.

  Spittle collected inside his visor as he screamed, charging at her.

  Sophie jumped out of the chair, tossed it at Alan and ran toward the conveyor belt feeding the incinerator. Alan hurdled over Paul and Karen and kicked the chair to the wall.

  She darted right, to the back wall.

  Alan’s suit helped him pump his legs. Fast.

  He caught her.

  He wrapped his hands around her neck, lifted her off the ground, and she shrieked and choked, her legs kicking wildly. He carried her to the conveyor belt and flipped her in the air, slamming her on her back against the metal boards. Her lungs spasmed and her eyes blurred through dizziness and tears. She pulled her legs up to her chest, but Alan’s flattened them down. He banged his fist against the conveyor belt controls and it whined to life, creaking to the incinerator doors.

  Alan straddled on top of her and lifted his visor. He snapped the silver necklace off her and wrapped it around his fist like a piece of wire.

  “I saved you. I fucking saved you from everything that was out there. And this is how you repay me?”

  He backhanded her across the cheek, cutting a diagonal gash from her jaw to the bottom of her eye.

  Paul surged to his feet with his gun raised. He couldn’t fire for fear of hitting Sophie with a stray shot. And he didn’t want to lose her again, to his own fuckup or to a sociopath who didn’t care what got fucked in the process so long as he got what he wanted. Life be damned.

  Paul ran behind Alan and jabbed the rifle at the base of Alan’s skull. Alan ceased slapping Sophie and began to turn. Paul pulled the trigger as fast as his finger could, firing three shots through the back of Alan’s skull.

  The helmet exploded, spraying debris of black plastic, white bone and grey and red brain matter over the wall of the incinerator. Splotches of red coated Sophie and Paul’s faces.

  The remaining shell of Alan’s helmet clanged against the conveyor belt as he fell on top of Sophie. Paul grabbed Alan’s body and pulled it off her where it rolled clumsily to the floor. He lay there, dead.

  He picked her up off the moving belt and cradled her in his arms. Tufts of hair hid her red and swelling face. Her eyes remained closed and her breath shallow. She tried to raise an arm but her lack of strength kept it dangling. He walked to Karen, who leaned against the tool cabinets clutching her arm. He sat down and rested Sophie against his chest.

  “She saved us. She saved the whole city,” Karen said, placing her head on Paul’s shoulder.

  He touched her hair, tracing the streak of white that shot back from her forehead. “She did.”

  Stomping boots entered the ZMT bay, and lights flashed outside. A crew of ZMTs had returned and entered, climbing over the pile of drones, with guns raised.

  Paul waved, shouting, “We’re alive! We’re alive.”

  Epilogue

  A month had passed since Paul had ridden in a ZMT truck and worked a shift, and the familiar became new as the day progressed. Cabinets full of supplies clacked and rattled while the radio scratched and squawked with calls from dispatch. The old plastic and metal interior held an antiseptic tinge when he first sat in the passenger’s seat this morning. It had dissipated by now, as he directed one of his new team members to their final stop of the day.

  “Pull up by the window that says ‘Print Shop,’” Paul said to Jayme, who drove. She kept her black hair up in a bun, chewed bubble gum, and favored dropping song lyrics into conversation. Some Paul knew, but others could have been made up strings of flowery words.

  “This isn’t on our call sheet,” Carl said over Paul’s shoulder. Carl’s thick brown beard, coup
led with his orange-tinted shooting glasses made him look like an instructor at a gun range. He didn’t talk much, but after lunch he did offer up his plan to start a rec football league in the city. Paul agreed it’d be a good idea.

  “It’s not on the call sheet, but part of this job is knowing the locals, especially in Foxer,” Paul said.

  Jayme and Carl were part of the recent class of ZMT recruits, whose initial start date was pushed back following the debacle with Alan’s drones nearly destroying the ZMT bay. Zombie attacks spiked throughout the city the week after due to hampered response times caused by lack of units and trashed supply depot. Everything had settled back to normal now, with the new class and cleaned up hub for the rigs to come and go for shifts. Most of Paul’s bruises had healed, and the doctors cleared him of any concussion symptoms.

  Jayme stopped the rig, and Paul climbed out the back. He pulled up his coat collar to shield the wind and lightly falling snowflakes. Jayme and Carl followed him through the shop’s door, where a chime bonged at their arrival. Two computers on the far wall were unoccupied, but a short Hispanic woman in a leather coat punched buttons at one of the three freestanding copiers.

  “Paul,” Julian said behind the counter. He wore a white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and pleated khaki pants. He was still lanky but without the prison jumpsuit, he no longer looked like an escaped scarecrow. “Figured you’d visit sooner or later.”

  Paul nodded with a half smile and said, pointing, “This is Jayme and Carl.”

  “They ain’t working for anyone on the side are they?”

  “What?” Carl asked, adjusting his glasses.

  “Just for the city,” Paul said. “Karen had Sophie implement some new background check protocols.”

  “That right,” Julian said, crossing his arms.

  “And Sophie suggested I check in on you.”

  Julian suppressed a laugh, “Like a courtesy call.”

  The door chimed and Paul looked over as the Hispanic woman left the three ZMTs and Julian alone in the shop. Snow came down heavier. He turned back to Julian. “Something like that, but also . . . she said to thank you.”

  “Thank me? For?”

  “If not for you crashing the truck, Alan would be hell-bent on selling his drone zombies, and Sophie’d still be where she was.”

  Julian laughed and bent forward.

  “Wait, this is the guy that crashed the eighteen wheeler in Belleville?” Jayme asked with her head askew.

  “And,” Julian drew out the word for effect, “the only sane one who fled that shitstorm at your command center.”

  “I can’t blame you for running, but it seems you only ran as far as Foxer.”

  “Had plans to run farther, but once I heard your asshole Alan was dead, I figured to stay, take it easy. Living on the road just wears on you.” He shrugged. “Running a print shop is all I know. So why not fill that need on this side of town.”

  “Keeping it clean, too.”

  Julian narrowed his eyes. “Molly took the last of the money, and she ran. Greenport ate up her family, so she got out of here before the city came chomping at her. For the record,” he eyed Jayme and Carl, “I haven’t spilled any ink. Plan on keeping it that way.”

  Paul held suspicions that Molly had left town after seeing her bar, Besson’s, remain closed along the river. Julian’s confirmation still hit a wistful nerve, as Paul wanted to thank her for saving him, and for kicking him upside the head. He sighed and mentally checked if he and Karen had any bourbon or tea bags at their apartment. He’d sip a glass of both in Molly’s honor.

  After a few more minutes of idle small talk, Paul excused his team, and they drove back to Central as a blanket of snow formed across the city.

  They arrived back to a subdued hangar, where the cold and snow had brought a stillness to the normally rambunctious atmosphere. Rigs coasted out, carving grey tracks into the powdery white, and the occasional click and clack of machinery interspersed casual conversation. Paul considered the ZMT corps still worked through the shock of Alan’s assault, nearing a stage of acceptance now that they had replaced their main bay door with something even stronger. And in time, the foul blood that stained the floor would wear away.

  “Nothing major today,” Paul said as Jayme killed the engine, “So the report ought to take five minutes, tops.”

  “I can handle that, if Jayme cleans the rig,” Carl said, pulling out a slate computer.

  Jayme made a playful face of disapproval, “Thanks, Quick Draw.”

  “Is that a reference? I never was up on pop culture,” Carl said with his face down, fingers tapping the screen. “Like Paul said, we had no major calls today, so cleanup ought to be a cinch.”

  “Jayme, I’ll give the rig a once over. Head home and get a warm meal,” Paul said.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “Hardest part will be walking around the truck,” Paul replied.

  “Done,” Carl said with a cough.

  “Seriously, I got this. Head home, and I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

  Jayme smiled and Carl gave a thumbs up, and they both exited the cab of the truck. With Bobby and Jane, Paul would have let them argue over the task, but he didn’t want minor incidents to fester and grow to an infected sore of resentment. He delegated more, and also took charge of the team, like today’s visit to Julian. Taking them there to the copy shop gave them a face in Foxer to recognize. Whether or not Julian would stay clean of Foxer’s vices, Paul was confident Julian would help a ZMT, if needed.

  Paul finished taking stock of the supplies, walking around the rig and inspecting for damage, then locked up their weapons in the armory. He left the bay and climbed the stairs to greet Karen at the end of her shift, and maybe his sister would exit her command center to say hello. Calling her Sophie still jarred all the memories of their shared youth, but the verbal slipups happened less and less. He had spent two days at her bedside in the hospital while she recovered from Alan’s assault, and the two talked, comparing their lives in the five years they lived apart.

  How he roamed the wild looking for her. Running through creek beds and dense forests. Camping out in houses and looking for music players with battery life while learning to survive. Meeting Karen.

  How she scavenged for months in a school. Abducted. Escaped. Became a techno-savvy urban planner under Alan’s tutelage. Spying on Paul and Karen.

  “Hey,” he said, strolling into the call center.

  Karen turned from her keyboard, and smiled. “Hey, yourself. Your crew was the only crew to not receive a call today.”

  Paul shrugged and bent down to kiss her forehead. Her arm was still in a sling, but she managed the call center all the same. “The snow’s keeping the zombies inside. They move slower in snow.”

  “Seems to be slowing the whole city today. Calls are down across the board.”

  “Nothing wrong with a slow, quiet day.”

  “That’s the truth,” Karen said. She made a half-cringe, half-smile, “Except when the mayor calls you and says she wants to resign.”

  Paul widened his eyes, “Really? That’s . . . ”

  “Well, maybe. She was thinking about it is all she said. I said to keep thinking about it and let the council know. She’s obviously clueless now that Alan isn’t pulling her strings and feeding her filtered information.”

  “If that happened, we’d have an election, right?”

  Karen stood and pulled on her peacoat. “A legitimate election.”

  “You should run,” Sophie said from the doorway, her hand scratching at the door. Her face was no longer swollen, but still held patches of yellow bruising from Alan’s fists. A three-inch scar would always arc from her left cheekbone to her jaw. Before Paul or Karen could stammer an answer, Sophie continued, “Karen should run for mayor. You know how the city works, you’re calm under pressure, people like you.”

  “Sophie,” Karen said, lightly laughing, “I’m flattered you believe that, but I’m
sure there’s a shopkeeper in Belleville that doesn’t care for me. I couldn’t run for mayor.”

  Paul pulled at her waist, “And why not?” He nodded to his sister. “Sophie’s right, though, given recent events.”

  She looked at Paul and Sophie with a raised eyebrow, and she broke a crooked smile. “The thought did run through my mind after Caroline hung up.”

  “See? You know it, too,” Paul said.

  Karen and Paul walked down the corridor with Sophie, and they stopped at the door to her command center. Inside were two men and a woman, each hunched over their respective keyboards. In the month since Alan’s death, Sophie requested the council free the jailed programmers and technologists in the Mill that had no violent crimes on their records and offer them positions with the city.

  “Working late again?” Paul asked.

  Sophie nodded. “Auditing all of Alan’s source code is going to take time. Plus, I want to make sure nothing scary is still hanging around.”

  A cordon of ZMTs razed Alan’s research building, destroying anything deemed remotely dangerous. Sophie decried the act as rash, but understood why it occurred. She worked now to determine if the various programs Alan implemented worked honestly or if they still held a darker purpose.

  “We’ll have food for you, if you stop by later,” Karen said, giving Sophie a quick hug.

  “Justin, the network guy, brought lasagna, but thank you.”

  “That’s several steps up from pizza. I’m impressed,” Paul said, rubbing Sophie’s shoulder.

  Sophie grinned.

  “Stop by any time,” Paul said. “No more needing to be a ghost.”

  “I know,” she said, and stepped forward to hug him. “Love you, brother.”

  Paul wrapped his arm around her shoulder, “Love you, sister."