Year of the Zombie [Anthology]

by David Moody

  Within five minutes he’d diffused the majority of the situation and Karl pulled up in the truck. He would have liked to question his brother further about what was going on but if he didn’t get these people out on the hunt, and soon, he was going to have more problems to deal with. Karl didn’t say anything to anybody as Zurgens ushered them all onto the top of the truck.

  ‘This is a clusterfuck, Karl.’

  Karl stared silently ahead.

  ‘Just get us to the hunt. I don’t need your accusing glares anyway. If I wanted that I’d go visit our mother.’

  Karl drove for twenty minutes; a plume of thick black smoke from the burning oil drums came into view in the distance.

  ‘How close do you wish me to get?’ Karl asked, as he slowed to a stop.

  ‘Three hundred yards, the same as always.’

  ‘We no longer have our snipers; no one is in position in the field.’

  On their second safari, two of the hunters had frozen in place and the third had a stove pipe jam in his rifle, thus effectively taking him out of the equation. The zombies had come dangerously close, until Zurgens began to fire. They’d got within twenty yards of the guests before the danger was eradicated. After that fiasco, safety measures were adopted to prevent that sort of thing happening again. One of the measures had been to have snipers in place, well hidden on each side of the approaching herd, and if the zombies managed to get past a certain point it was the sharpshooters’ responsibility to keep the clients safe.

  ‘It was necessary, Karl.’

  ‘This is going sideways, brother.’

  ‘Going? This thing has always been fucking sideways, Karl. We’re shooting at unwilling medical experiments. Which part of that sounds alright to you? You’re making enough money to get yourself some decent professional help, or perhaps you can self-medicate. Whatever gets you through the day.’

  ‘I can barely make any shit out, are we getting any closer?’ Jenkins asked from the roof.

  ‘Perhaps, Mr Jenkins, if you hadn’t drunk so much last night you would be able to see more clearly out your scope.’ Zurgens had gotten out and was surveying the area with a pair of binoculars.

  ‘I guess he told you, James,’ Henry good-naturedly ribbed his friend.

  ‘You realize I could buy and sell you right?’ Jenkins said, it was phrased as a question but said more as a statement. ‘I mean this is Africa, the capital of that kind of thing.’

  ‘Getting eaten by large cats also happens out here, and frequently enough to pass as accidental. Against my better judgment I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you, and as an added bonus, I’ll even forget what you just said. We’ll get a hundred yards closer, Mr Jenkins, and if you still can’t see by then, I suggest an appointment with your optometrist when you get home. Go slow, Karl, I’ll stay alongside.’

  Karl lurched the vehicle forward quickly, making his brother have to jog to catch up.

  ‘That shit isn’t funny, Karl.’ Zurgens said as he came up alongside the passenger door. Karl laid on the gas, leaving his brother behind. What the fuck is he doing? Zurgens didn’t see the brake lights come on until the truck was no more than seventy yards from the zombie set-up point. From this distance the group might be able to see the cage the zombies would be released from and would definitely be able to tell that the ‘people’ in the burning military vehicles were mannequins. The illusion began to lose its shimmer from anything less than a hundred yards, and at that distance there was definitely a diminishing safety factor.

  Zurgens could see the zombies stumbling as they came toward the parked truck. Karl must have hit the remote-controlled mechanism that opened the cage gate.

  ‘What the fuck, Karl?’ Zurgens yelled as he began to trudge towards the truck. He’d not taken two steps when gunfire erupted. Surprisingly, it was Samuel who had got the first shot off and the shock didn’t end there. The little man had landed his mark; Zurgens watched a zombie fall over, its head nearly decapitated from the heavy round.

  ‘Damn good shot little buddy!’ James clapped Samuel’s shoulder hard enough that he nearly pushed the man out of his seat.

  ‘I am NOT your buddy, you belligerent fool!’ Samuel stood up and was shaking.

  ‘What the fuck’s got your feathers all ruffled you little bitch?’ Darren Wheats, usually the quiet one of the trio, also stood and was defending his friend. ‘I’ll knock that head of yours clean off!’

  ‘How dare you!’ Carla said, also rising to her feet. Her words were steady and low spoken, like the warning growl of a dog that means business. The woman was nearly twice the size of any one on that roof and she was threatening to use all that bulk right now.

  ‘Has the fucking entire world just gone mad?’ Zurgens could only stop and stare. Even his brother, who was generally unconcerned with just about everything the clients did, had gotten out of the truck to witness the escalation of events, a slightly bemused smile upon his face.

  Zurgens might have got a laugh out of the whole thing himself if he hadn’t noticed the pack of zombies streaking uncharacteristically rapidly towards the dysfunctional hunting party.

  ‘Karl!’ he shouted.

  He sensed that disaster was advancing at an accelerated pace and there was nothing he’d be able to do in time to stop any of it. Carla swung the butt of her rifle out in an attempt to strike Darren, but instead she caught Henry Fields in the side of the jaw; two of his teeth spiraled out of his mouth and hit the ground. James, seeing his opportunity, punched Samuel in the temple, the man’s knees buckled and he would have fallen onto the roof of the truck, had space permitted. Instead, his right knee landed on his vacant seat and spun him to the side where his hip smacked into the small safety railing that surrounded the entire seating area. His head pitched over the enclosure, pulling the rest of his body with it.

  He landed in the dirt with a bone breaking thud, his left arm bent back at a gruesome angle. The action on top ceased for a moment as everybody watched Samuel’s fall, and then started anew as if the sound of his limbs snapping, like dry twigs in the dead of winter was the cue to renew hostilities. Karl eventually looked over to his brother, whose mouth was hanging open. He looked back as if to say do you see what’s happening here? but he was enjoying himself immensely. It was Henry Of The Bleeding Mouth who found himself the next one forcibly expelled from the roof. If one were observing this scene from afar, they might think it a very violent game of King of the Hill. If bets were being placed, the smart money would be on Carla, who was even now wrestling with James and Darren. Zurgens’ hand went down to the small cannon he had attached to his hip but even as he drew the weapon up, he felt the futility of his actions. His brother stood between him and his intended target and from this range, he dared not take the shot.

  Peppers, the sixty year old Cambodian chef, who only the night before had been preparing all of their meals, crashed into Karl’s side at a full sprint. They both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Peppers’ jaws were snapping open and closed viciously, his teeth cracking against each other as he desperately sought purchase with the weathered skin of his intended victim. Blood poured from his mouth as his broken, jagged teeth bit into his own cheeks and tongue. Karl had one hand around Peppers’ throat and had sent a punch towards the side of Peppers’ head in a desperate bid to dislodge the attacker, but Peppers had turned his head just as the fist was being delivered. He bit down hard on Karl’s knuckles, taking a shard of bone with him as he tore the meat from the top of the hand and fingers. Karl screamed out in pain and rage.

  Samuel was slow to regain himself; his dislocated arm causing him to moan. Julia, previously the Z-Hunt hostess, was the first to see the helpless man lying within easy reach. She dove straight for the blood leaking from his compound fracture. Samuel was in too much of a fog to even mount a defense. She stripped away arm meat like a bar patron might a chicken wing. It peeled away in one long slab, Samuel only managed a small bark before his eyes crossed and he passed out. He wo
uld awake in a far different place.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ It was Jenkins, looking down upon the scene from the perch. Carla slowly stopped fighting once she realized what was happening all around them.

  ‘Help me the fuck up!’ Henry shrieked. Three zombies were nearly upon him. Darren and Carla reached down to grab him, but James backed away. A brief comprehension of betrayal crossed Henry’s features and at the same time, two zombies ran headlong into him. The first, Reikali, the head grounds keeper’s skull collided with Henry’s in splintering concussive force. Kylie, one of two waitresses on staff, bit right through Henry’s neck, pulling on the tough cordage that pumped blood into his brain. His mouth and lungs filled with blood entirely too fast for him to even utter a sound as he collapsed under the weight of a third zombie piling on, wanting his fair share.

  Karl had finally pushed his attacker away, his hand hemorrhaging from three different wounds. With his good hand, he reached across to his holster. Shaking, he shot the man, once in the chest at mid-sternum—he staggered back but did not fall. The second bullet pierced his stomach, exploding the tissue out in a mushroom plume. He dropped to his knees, yet still his mouth snapped at air, attempting to get at his meal. Karl’s third shot struck above the man’s right eye, rolling the orb all the way back like a slot machine reel. He moaned deeply and fell backwards. Karl was turning to the next threat, Jordie, their maintenance man, who had never once moved faster than required and yet now launched himself into the air. His outstretched hands raked across Karl’s cheeks.

  ‘Dick,’ Karl said, in response to Jordie’s suddenly impressive speed. The confrontation was over nearly as quickly as it had begun. Karl’s nose entered directly into Jordie’s mouth and the maintenance man had bit down hard. He easily chewed through the cartilage and swallowed the whole appendage down in one thick, congealed mass of tissue. Jordie quickly moved on to Karl’s eye. Karl had his hands wrapped around his attacker’s head, but it was too late. Carla, James, and Darren finally began to fire into the crowd of zombies. Zurgens found himself in no-man’s land. He thought perhaps he should turn and start running away. If the zombies noticed his sudden movement, that would be the end, though. In test trials, zombies had run for twelve solid hours at full speed in an effort to get the bait that had been suspended behind the Land Rover.

  He’d given his brother hell a couple of times because Karl had slowed down, allowing the trailing zombies enough time to get close to Zurgens, who would stand on a special platform on the rear bumper. When the injection had finally worn off, hours later, all three subjects, now human once again, had died from exhaustion, dehydration, and heat stroke. But not one of them had slowed their pursuit while the serum was active. Zurgens knew he was in good shape, but not that good. He’d be able to sprint for a half mile, then keep up a decent pace for maybe three more, before slowing to a jog The camp was more than a dozen miles away. So, that was simply not doable. Getting into the Land Rover was his only option, though the situation was rapidly deteriorating: the vehicle was nearly surrounded as the zombies, with the feast on the ground now finished up, were trying to get to the people on top.

  He began to weigh the option of just sitting tight, not moving, not firing, maybe sneaking back into the cab, watching to see how this all played out. There was a chance that the three hunters on top could defeat the eighteen or so zombies struggling to get at them. He felt pretty good about his decision of indecision, right up until one of the zombies scaled the hood all the way to the perch and bit a mouthful from Darren’s thigh before he could wrest his leg away.

  ‘It bit me! It fucking bit me!’ Darren screamed. Again, Zurgens observed, as James backed away from the trouble, it was Carla that put a bullet in to the zombie’s neck, blowing enough of the ligature away that the head fell to the side without the adequate support to keep it upright. The zombie wobbled off the hood and out of the fight, not quite dead yet, but the human would be, once the virus wore off.

  ‘You’ll live,’ Carla said, taking a cursory glance at the wound. ‘Now start firing!’

  ‘I’m going to be a zombie!’ Darren cried.

  ‘Not if we win,’ Carla said. ‘The doctor has an antidote.’

  ‘Damn she’s fast on her feet,’ Zurgens whispered; she’d said it so convincingly he almost believed her himself. Kinzer had told the Reynolds, Zurgens, and his brother that there was an opportunity for the virus to be contracted by a bite, but as of yet he had not found the proper test subject with the appropriate genetic markers to allow this. He thought the chance was somewhere in the five percent range, but without enough studies he could not be sure. And since they were testing the lethality of a disease, it was rather difficult to come by volunteers. Plus, it was easier to control a part-time zombie, especially with their limited supply of subjects, and much safer for the lab crew. Though the doctor thought the chance of an injected zombie spreading the virus was low, he postulated that a ‘true’ zombie would be able to propagate the contagion at nearly one hundred percent.

  These zombies represented far too much profit to be used for experiments. Until today, they’d had all the safeguards they needed to make sure no hunter ever came into direct contact with a zombie. So Carla was likely ninety-five percent correct that Darren would survive the bite, if they survived the battle. James Jenkins, the Great White Hunter, had ducked down, and from Zurgens’ point of view, he seemed to be trying to get under his seat.

  Carla scoffed at the man. ‘Get your ass up!’ she yelled. His hands were over his ears and he winced with every gunshot report. Two more zombies had gone up the hood but Darren was ready for them. He shot one in the knee, sending it sprawling away, and the second bullet ripped through the side of the face of Tendra, completely blowing out that side of her jaw. James tentatively got back into the fight; Zurgens could see the shake in his barrel from his vantage point.

  ‘Jesus, I slept with her last night! I thought they said women weren’t infected?’

  ‘Things have apparently changed.’ Carla was shoving bullets into her magazine.

  ‘This is bad, this is really bad. We’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and I have twenty rounds and a five round capacity magazine.’

  ‘There’s only a few left. As soon as we take care of them we’ll head back to camp.’

  ‘Will there be flights out of here? I don’t want to be stuck on this godforsaken continent.’

  ‘The continent doesn’t want you to be stuck on it either,’ Carla said. ‘More shooting, less griping.’

  Darren was nearly placing the barrel of his weapon directly on foreheads. He was concerned that one of the zombies might attempt to wrest it away from him, but bullets were getting precariously low and he could not afford to waste on a kill-shot miss. Unlike what he knew from movies and books, it did appear that wounds to the chest caused debilitating damage within the zombies. They didn’t die outright but the heavy sucking sounds from their exposed ribcages as they fell to the ground seemed to indicate they were out of the fight.

  ‘I’m out,’ Darren said as he caved in the skull of the man who had served him ice cold beer the previous evening.

  ‘Take numb-nuts’ rifle. He keeps putting bullets in the dirt, he’s shaking so much.’

  Jenkins did not protest when his friend grabbed the weapon. If anything, he was relieved.

  ‘I... I think my hand is broken. Can’t grip it right.’

  Darren said nothing as he checked the magazine and the safety. ‘You have anymore bullets?’

  ‘Just what you have.’

  ‘Carla, I have four rounds.’

  ‘I’m down to my last two or so.’

  ‘Well, unless they line up single file there will still be four left over.’

  The surviving zombies cared not at all about their fallen comrades. If anything, it spurred them on even harder. As of yet, they had not tried the hood again, but it was only a matter of time. When the hunters had expended their last rounds, five zombies remaine
d.

  ‘Now or never, Zurgens,’ he murmured to himself through gritted teeth. ‘Time to put your big boy pants on.’ His pistol was out and aimed straight forward. He walked slowly towards his target. ‘Six bullets, five zombies. This oughta get interesting.’

  ‘It’s Zurgens! I’ve always liked that man!’ Jenkins said. ‘Kill them! Kill them, please!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you little weasel,’ Zurgens hissed. He wanted to get as close as he could, maybe kill two of them before they even knew he was there. But all of Jenkins’ animated pointing had alerted the zombies to the fact that something was going on. ‘If I have a bullet left, I’m putting it in your knee, you idiot.’ His voice was barely louder than expelled air.

  One zombie turned to look at what Jenkins was so excited about. Zurgens was not happy with the sign of intelligence that one small action displayed. Dogs, for all their strengths, were widely believed to not understand the concept of pointing. And just five seconds ago Zurgens would have said zombies were not as smart as canines. He would never get the opportunity to shatter Jenkins’ knee. A zombie came around from the other side of the truck. Zurgens could only imagine that it had climbed the tire before jumping up to the rooftop. It had grabbed a clump of Jenkins’ hair and, as it fell backwards, it dragged Jenkins over with it. A piercing scream was cut short as the zombie ripped out his vocal cords. Zurgens presumed the monster wanted to eat in peace.

  ‘Fuck.’ His heart began to pound heavily in his chest as the first of them came his way. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her as he fired. ‘I’m sorry for putting both of us in this situation.’ The first bullet punched a hole into the top of her shoulder, roughly the size of a fist. Her clavicle was shattered into pieces, thick ropes of muscle fell out onto her back. The force of the impact spun her to the side and she stumbled four or five steps but still kept coming forward. The other three, having been alerted to the presence of a new food source, began to head his way as well. He realized he had one bullet for each of them. If he was anything less than perfect, he would be receiving a big old ‘told you so’ from his dearly departed brother very soon.