by David Moody
His second shot struck the center of her chin, severing her spinal column and damaging her cortex, her lifeless body raised a small impact cloud of dust as she hit the ground. Two zombies were in a dead heat to make it to him for the choicest bits, but, luckily for Zurgens, one got tangled up by the newly deceased barmaid. Zurgens was concerned his next shot landed too low when he saw the jaw of Grimmons, the baggage clerk, torn off by the heavy round. Sure, he’d be hard-pressed to inflict a bite wound now, but he could still be problematic. Zurgens was elated when the man fell to the ground. He slowly crept closer to the body, attempting to ascertain whether it was dead or not.
The zombie that had tripped was now speeding across the ground on all fours and, if anything, it was faster in this mode of locomotion. Even if it wasn’t, it was still completely unnerving to Zurgens to see what was once a human move that way. He had to steady his hand to make sure he put a head shot into the beast that was crawling at him. Its head was moving from side to side, spanning nearly a foot as it swung back and forth like a target at a shooting gallery. Zurgens lined up, steadied himself, and timed his shot. The bullet hit the crown of the head slightly to the left, shearing off a slice as neatly as if a katana had been used. The zombie rolled three or four times and was still.
‘Two zombies... you’ve got this.’ A fat drop of salty sweat fell into his right eye just as the next zombie hurdled over the dead crab-like thing. Zurgens had not been expecting it to launch upwards like it had. His shot struck the zombie in the groin, splitting its pelvis into four fragments. It howled in rage and pain as it crashed forward into Zurgens. He was able to get his gun up and under its chin. The explosion ripped the top half of its head clean off and sent it rolling across the dirt. Zurgens knew ‘clean’ was the wrong term—he was bathed in detritus; blood and brain covered most of his face, but the meaning was conveyed. He was nearly blinded by the sheer volume of viscous fluid coating him and he still had one zombie to contend with. The zombie that had taken Jenkins down, now had his sights set on fresher meat. He’d been bitten by a dog once; he wondered if a zombie bite would be worse.
It was worse. Infinitely worse. The German Shepherd had pierced the flesh, but hadn’t been intent on eating him. The zombie was compressing the muscle in his arm to the point that he reckoned it would rupture before actual penetration happened. The zombie clamped its teeth together and shook its head violently from side to side, taking a small chunk of Zurgens with him. Zurgens began to blindly punch out, striking the monster wherever he could in an effort to get it away from him. He’d not been expecting the sound of a shot and certainly not from so close. For a moment he thought perhaps he had counted his rounds wrong.
‘It’s okay, Zurgens, it’s me, Darren. He’s dead, they’re all dead.’
‘Fuck that hurts.’ Zurgens took his shirt off and ripped it in two. With one half he cleaned his face as best he could, with the other he tied a tourniquet around his upper arm. ‘Get your shirt off; you’re going to need one too. I don’t want you to bleed out before we get back.’
‘For the antidote?’ Darren was searching for an answer.
‘Sure,’ Zurgens replied.
‘Am I going to need to worry about you two?’ Carla was still on the roof, her rifle poised. She had held one round back and could kill Darren before he had an opportunity to ‘turn.’ Zurgens no longer had a weapon and right now he wasn’t sure if he’d stop her even if he had. She was, after all, the only one who’d avoided being bitten.
‘We’ll be fine. There’s only a five percent transmission rate.’ He said to Carla.
‘You said during the safety briefing that if we got bit we’d be zombies.’
‘Ever hear of marketing?’ Zurgens asked as he tied the tourniquet tightly to Darren’s leg. ‘How scary would it have been if I’d said ‘Don’t worry about getting bit, folks. There’s little chance you’ll get sick.’ Much easier to keep everyone in line if there’s the threat of becoming a target yourself’
‘Oh right now I’d say it’s still very scary.’ Darren said, deadpan.
Zurgens couldn’t help but let out a little stress in the form of a small laugh. ‘I guess you’re right.
‘I’ll drive. Let’s go.’ Carla got behind the wheel.
‘I’m sorry brother. I’ll be back to bury you.’ Zurgens kissed his first two fingers and placed them on his brother’s already cooled forehead.
Carla sped away from the scene of carnage. Darren was in the backseat and refused to look back; Zurgens couldn’t help but do so. All of this was his fault. He’d found a way to keep the hunt going and it had cost him his brother’s life. He realized then that he wasn’t the only one that had lost someone.
‘Are you okay?’ He turned to Carla.
‘Samuel was a tender man, a good man. I will grieve later. Right now I just want to make it through the day.’
‘Fair enough.’ Zurgens picked up the microphone. ‘Doc, this is Zurgens. Can you hear me?’
‘Tell him we need the antidote,’ Darren winced.
‘You want to tell him or should I?’ Carla asked.
‘Tell me what?’ Darren asked in alarm.
‘There is no antidote. Yes, I know what she said. The transmission rate is so low and we supposedly had safeguards ensuring no one ever got bit, so we never had one developed,’ Zurgens informed the man.
‘Well that’s just damned irresponsible isn’t it! You take our money and put us in a flat out perilous situation and then don’t have a way for us to get out of it when it all goes wrong? What kind of operation are you running here? I just lost two of my best damned friends and I’m probably going to lose this fucking leg!’
‘I’m sorry about your friends. Truly I am. But what exactly do you think you agreed to when you signed those documents we handed you upon arrival?’
‘Not the right to kill me, for god’s sake!’
‘You should have read the fine print,’ Zurgens said before trying to hail the doctor again. ‘Doc, this is Zurgens. We’re coming in hot. One of our guests has been bitten, as have I. We’ve lost Karl and three guests. Going to need medical attention as soon as we pull in. Should be there in under a half hour.’
Zurgens could hardly contain his relief when the radio crackled and Kinzer’s voice came through. ‘I’ll be waiting.’ Then there was silence.
Darren was losing his mind. ‘That’s it? I’ll be fucking waiting? Where’s the airlift to the hospital? What the fuck is going on here? What a fucking circus you have going on here!’
‘Mr Wheats, I can assure you that you do not want to find yourself in a Botswana hospital. And for now, as you pointed out, it appears that the zombie threat has been neutralized.’
Back at camp, Kinzer stitched them up and gave a full spectrum of antibiotics and opiates, assuring Mr Wheats that he would be fine. It was the sedative, and not the doctor’s assurances, that finally got the man to calm down.
‘Zurgens, I cannot be completely sure for at least another twenty-four hours whether either of you will become infected. It will be necessary for you to be quarantined. I will retrieve your brother’s body, but for now you both need to be in the cell,’ Kinzer said.
Zurgens looked over at the cage, a heavy feeling of dread and apprehension washed over him.
‘Come, come Zurgens. One day, that is all. When I am certain that you are clear, we will resume business as usual.’
Zurgens knew the doctor was right about having to be locked up but he could not shake the feeling that the end was close. There would never be ‘business as usual’ again. Zurgens dragged Darren in with himself and pulled the door closed. Kinzer activated the magnetic locks.
‘I’ll be back in an hour. I am truly sorry about Karl; he was a brilliant man. We spent many a night discussing theorems and postulating hypotheses on all manner of things. What a terrible waste.’
‘Are we talking about the same man?’
‘I do not believe you knew him as I did.’ The doctor said as he
exited the medical facility.
He had no sooner left when the door opened back up. It was Carla.
‘We need to talk,’ she said.
‘It appears I have the time,’ he told her, he was sitting on a bench contemplating everything that had gone wrong.
‘Our friend?’ she asked pointing to Darren.
‘Sleeping quite contentedly, lucky bastard.’
‘I... learned a trick many years ago—how to place a name with a face so I would never be in the socially awkward position of coming up on someone I’d met previously and not remembering their name.’
‘That’s a handy tool.’
‘What I’m saying, Zurgens, is that I knew everyone I shot today. I find it strange that Z-Hunt would turn their entire staff into zombies so that rich wankers like us could shoot them. I see the wheels in your head turning, struggling to spin this some way. I’ll let you off the hook on that, but you can’t deny it. While you and Mr Wheats were getting repaired, I went back out to the site. I took pictures of my dearly departed and the faces of everyone on the ground out there. I then took screen grabs of Z-Hunt’s web pages, which show bios and photos of your entire staff.’
Zurgens eyes grew wide for a moment.
‘Now, I’m not entirely sure what type of man you are and what might happen to me when you are released from that cell, so I took some necessary precautions to ensure my safety. Don’t worry how; that’s not your concern. Just know that I am protected, should anything... befall me.’
‘What do you want, Mrs Weatherford?’
‘What do you believe my dead husband to be worth? Now I do realize that you are only an employee yourself, so naturally you’ll want to discuss this with your boss. I’m willing to settle relatively inexpensively. I want ten million in gold. This is not negotiable. I’m leaving my account numbers on the table, and if it’s not deposited by this time tomorrow, I will rain holy hell down upon this entire establishment, you included. Please, don’t get up. I’ve already made arrangements for transportation, and I can honestly say I hope I never have the displeasure of meeting you again.’
He watched her ample backside walk out. ‘How much more fucked up can this day get?’ Zurgens asked the passed-out Wheats. He’d not really meant to tempt the fates with that statement and wished he could withdraw it. Zurgens sat back. He let his mind wander. At some point he became acutely aware that an hour had passed, and then another. Now he was concerned. Either something had happened to the doctor, or Reynolds had told Kinzer not to let him out of the cell. Either way was bad news. More time passed; Darren was beginning to stir. Zurgens moved to the front of the cage trying to think of a way to get out. The release switch was over thirty feet away and underneath a heavy plastic panel. He was contemplating tossing a boot to see if he could flip the panel up, when the facility door opened.
‘About ti...’ The words fell away.
‘Not who you were expecting?’ Mrs Reynolds asked. She looked disheveled and had a slightly gray tinge to her.
‘I am truly glad to see that you are still alive,’ he said, meaning the words.
‘No thanks to you. Are you wondering what happened to the good doctor?’
‘I was.’
‘He seemed so sad when he realized that your brother was gone, so I gave him the opportunity to be reunited with him. Oh don’t look so shocked. He didn’t even blink when he gave me the injection. I was just another experiment to him. Now he’s dead. I cut right through his carotid artery; bled out in a couple of minutes. I’ve got to admit, I rather enjoyed the experience.’
‘Mrs Weatherford?’
‘I let her go after I helped her drain everything from my wonderful husband’s account. I even signed over the land to her. He’s got nothing except the change of clothes in his luggage.’ Jan came farther into the room and sat down heavily on a chair.
‘You don’t look well, Jan.’
‘I don’t feel well, Zurgens. You see, I think I am one of Kinzer’s lucky five percenters. Fairly sure I’m going to be a full-time, bonafide, flesh eating zombie soon.’ She took a deep breath, stood and crossed the room. She reached up and pulled a dart gun off the wall.
‘What are you doing, Jan?’ Zurgens asked worriedly.
‘You know what zombies fear, Zurgens?’ She was checking the breech to make sure there was a dart inside, then she approached the cell. ‘No answer? Okay. Well, they fear being alone. That’s why they move in herds.’
‘What are you going to do?’ He put his hands up.
‘I’m patient zero, Zurgens, and you are going to be my number one.’ She pulled the trigger. The dart lodged deeply into Zurgen’s outstretched hand. When he awoke some time later, it was Darren that helped him up. The cage door was open as was the door to the building.
‘What the hell is going on? You’re bleeding. Do you have a new wound?’ Darren pointed to a dark red spot on Zurgen’s shirt.
Zurgens pulled it open to reveal that his left nipple had been completely bitten off.
‘What the fuck?!’ Darren stared at the shredded skin.
Zurgens felt sick to his stomach and had the type of headache usually reserved for the morning after a Tequila binge.
‘Get the truck, Darren. Find a way to get the fuck off this continent. Find yourself a bunker, get to your buddy’s basement. The fury of hell is coming and it will be led by a woman scorned.’
GERAINT WYN: ZOMBIE KILLER
Gary Slaymaker
ONE
Raymond Arthur William Jenkins had been a miserable, bad-tempered sod throughout his life, and death hadn’t improved his mood one little bit.
“Waking up” in a dank, cramped coffin had been bad enough, but then the next few months of breaking his way out of the box and digging through the earth above had really pissed him off.
He’d torn through the lining of the casket roof quite quickly, but clawing through the lid had taken weeks. By the end of the first day’s scratching he’d lost all his fingernails; although, at this point he was beyond pain. A week later, the bone was showing through the tips of his greying fingers, and a few weeks after that, the skin on both hands had been worn away, right down to the second finger joint.
Once he’d broken through the coffin lid, there was then the very annoying matter of digging his way through six foot of loose earth. It didn’t help matters when Raymond forgot to close his mouth, and ended up swallowing a handful of soil, and the odd earthworm. Then again, the worms did provide some much needed nutrition as he toiled away.
It was a bright, sunny spring afternoon when Raymond Arthur William Jenkins (Born 2nd November 1973 – Died 15th April 2028) at last broke free of his, supposed, final resting place. He squinted as the sun’s rays burned into his milky eyes, and dragged himself, finally, out of the ruin of his grave.
If he was still able to breathe, he’d have taken a huge gulp of air at that moment, and savoured the fresh, clean scent of the wild flowers growing around the graveyard. But the only thing that was consuming Raymond’s thoughts was the hunger… the gnawing, relentless hunger. Earthworms were fine for snacking, but he needed something more filling. And he needed it now.
Raymond shambled through the cemetery. He could hear the sinews, muscles, and cartilage in his legs popping and cracking as he tried to get used to walking again. Every now and then, he’d notice other grey-skinned, milky-eyed individuals, who also seemed to be suffering the same hunger pangs. One of these characters, a bony and near-naked old man, was kneeling at the base of a weather-beaten oak tree, gorging on a light snack. As he watched the stranger chewing his food with relish, Raymond wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to eat a cat; especially an uncooked one. Then again, he vaguely remembered the old phrase, ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse’, so maybe cat wasn’t that bad an option. Perhaps if he found a black cat to chew on he would get lucky, and then find something more substantial.
Raymond took one last look towards the grey skinned man and his feline feast, the
n shuffled off again through the cemetery.
He’d hardly walked more than fifty feet when he heard a voice shouting, ‘Oi! Stench!’ He looked around, but could see no-one, other than some of his re-animated colleagues.
Again the voice shouted, ‘Over here, mate. This way.’
This time Raymond was able to follow the direction of the voice. He took a half-turn, and looked up towards the cemetery wall. The last thing that went through Raymond Arthur William Jenkins’ mind was, Why are there three kids sat on top of that wall? And why is one of them pointing a rifle at me?
Although, technically, the last thing that went through Raymond’s mind was the bullet that blew the top of his head into tiny fragments.
◆◆◆
Geraint Wyn Thomas looked down from the top of the cemetery wall, placed the old hunting rifle by his side, grinned triumphantly and said, ‘There, got the bastard.’
TWO
Geraint Wyn Thomas (known to his friends as Gez) had celebrated his seventeenth birthday a month ago, back in April. It wasn’t much of a celebration, to be honest – some sandwiches, a cake from a supermarket, and some tins of cider, courtesy of his Uncle Billy – but he’d made the most of the day, and enjoyed himself in the company of his two closest friends, Neil and Bethan. And it was those same two that were sat on either side of him, in the makeshift firing range that had been erected along the wall of Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff.
Gez was average height, and a bit on the thin side (as were most youngsters these days, following the events of “Rotten Monday”, back in 2016). There was just about enough food to go around, still, but people had got used to eating less since the dead had come back. Why take the risk of looking for provisions outside the city walls, when you could so easily end up on someone else’s menu?