by TW Brown
“What my long-winded friend is trying to say is that we are basically hired guns now.” Debra patted the assault rifle she had draped across her body.
“Hired guns?” Joel scoffed. “What do you think people are going to be able to pay you with? Not much chance that the banks are still open.”
“More ways to collect than just a paycheck.” Debra’s eyes bored into Joel’s. “The way I see it…the world we knew is gone. This is like nothing anybody could’ve ever imagined. Most folks are going to be spending all their time and energy just trying to survive hour to hour.”
Joel liked what he was hearing. It was almost like he was hearing a younger and female version of himself speak through this woman. He guessed her to be in her early thirties. Her eyes were a deep brown, and looked like they had seen a rough journey. They were squinted a bit despite there not being any sun shining in them. She had a downturn to her mouth that looked permanent. He briefly wondered what it would look like if she were to smile.
“Can I just say what I am hoping we are all thinking?” Will said with a nervous laugh. “We aren’t talking about running around on the fool’s errand of trying to save people. We are going to secure our piece of the pie and do what needs to be done in order to make certain that we maintain it.”
“Basically we are the bad guys,” Debra added.
“I prefer to look at and refer to us as…pragmatic.” Joel glanced to the left, his eyes drawn by a flurry of movement.
He peered into his sideview mirror and watched as a pair of obviously living beings dashed out into the street in their wake. One of them began jumping up and down, waving both arms overhead in a desperate attempt to get the attention of the shuttle that had just sped past.
Debra stood and turned to look behind them. Joel was impressed. Obviously her senses were on high alert. Will seemed momentarily confused and had to get up and look back to see what had his comrade’s attention.
Joel returned his focus to the mirror offering him a good look at what they were leaving behind. He’d barely taken his foot off the gas when he spotted the fourth member of that group so intent on trying to flag him down. One of the people was holding a child that looked to be perhaps seven or eight years old. He continued to watch as a cluster of shapes came from all directions, homing in on the group, obviously drawn to their pleas for him to stop.
He continued watching as one of the members of the group advanced on the nearest zombie and brought a large bladed weapon, most likely some sort of machete, down on the crown of the head of the target. Unfortunately for that individual, the rest of the group now seemed frozen in terror as several more simply took the place of the fallen. He was surprised when he heard the first of the screams. He hadn’t heard their calls for help, yet these screams were at an entirely different level, and thus, obviously they carried farther.
His foot returned its original degree of pressure on the gas pedal as the shuttle continued to roll past wrecked or abandoned vehicles, bodies left to rot, staggered groups and singles of the walking dead, and the last vestiges of what people considered to be Las Vegas.
They were now approaching a plethora of apartment buildings, strip malls, and the sorts of buildings you would find in any normal town or city in the United States. This is where the men and women who kept the machines of vice operating full-tilt day and night, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Now, it looked like a war zone. Buildings were either burning or already burnt to the ground in many instances. The undead population also increased.
He had to slow down considerably as they rolled through the intersection of Tropicana and Topaz Street. “We might have a problem,” Joel announced.
Will and Debra crowded in the aisle next to the driver’s seat and stared out the front window at what waited ahead. Up until this point, they’d only encountered packs of the undead numbering no more than twenty or thirty. What seethed and undulated in the parking lot of what had once been a Walmart Superstore just two blocks ahead no doubt numbered in the hundreds.
“We can’t drive through that,” Debra breathed.
“No shit,” Will agreed.
“We can circle around using Hacienda,” Joel announced, wrenching the wheel around to the right and accelerating.
“You really think going out to the dam is the smart play?” Will asked, his hands fidgeting nervously with the M4 dangling at his side from the shoulder tether.
“I do,” Joel confirmed as he swerved around a nasty collision in the middle of the road and then hooked to the left to start up East Hacienda Avenue.
Up ahead, they could see what looked like a military road block. If not for the dozen undead staggering around the tan military vehicles—many wearing military fatigues—it might’ve been a successful mirage of hope. Joel slowed as they came up to a Humvee with the doors open. A lone figure remained “in” the vehicle. A machine gun turret mounted on top still had its crew member.
Joel stopped the shuttle and climbed out despite the protests and confusion being voiced by his two companions. He looked inside and realized that he was only half correct; just as that lone crew member was only half in the vehicle. His lower half had been torn free, and all that remained was the upper stumps of the soldier’s thighs dangling through a harness of some sort.
“We change vehicles here,” Joel announced to Will and Debra.
The pair looked around, assessed the scene, and then went about the methodical and anti-climactic elimination of the undead scattered about. Once again Joel was astounded that something like this zombie apocalypse had managed to not just gain a foothold, but apparently stomp a proper mudhole in civilization.
The ease and efficiency in which the two soldiers eliminated the threat was not even surgical. It was simple. That’s it…just simple. Other than the horde of several hundred milling about up the road near the local Walmart, the zombies had posed no threat as far as Joel could see. A thought niggled in his mind, but he shoved it away before it became a distraction.
As the soldiers dispatched zombies, Joel began transferring their weapons, ammo, and supply haul from the shuttle over to the Humvee. He glanced at his cat as he came up the steps for his second load. The feline had found a spot on the front seat bathed in the last of the afternoon sun.
“You would not care in the least if you were the last one left,” he muttered, giving Peanut a scratch behind his ear before hustling to grab the next load. Peanut purred in response and shut his eyes.
As soon as the zombies were put down, both Will and Debra rushed over to give Joel a hand moving the last of the gear. Once they had everything, they agreed to check out a few of the vehicles as well as search the soldiers’ corpses for anything useful.
Joel was just finishing a pat down of a female staff sergeant when a loud electronic blast of feedback caused him to jump. His hand was instantly holding his Beretta and he had it leveled at what should be close to center mass of an average adult target.
Will’s hands were in the air and a hint of red creeped up his neck as he blushed in at least moderate embarrassment. Joel made a mental note to himself when he saw that Debra had spun and drawn down as well.
Will gave the hand holding the two-way radio a shake. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was cranked when I powered it on.”
Joel and Debra each holstered their weapons. “You got a list of channels to monitor?” Joel asked as he returned to checking bodies. He hadn’t realized it until just this minute that he’d been unconsciously collecting the dog tags of every soldier he searched.
“I have one,” Debra announced. She patted her left breast pocket. “Hasn’t been updated in a while, but I doubt there has been much in the way of daily call sign and security swaps.”
Joel nodded and the three finished scavenging. Once they were satisfied, they loaded into the Humvee with Debra assuming the driver’s role after she got the big machine started. Will climbed into the gunner’s perch and, after doing a quick inspection of the weapon, readied the .
50 cal. Joel made it a point to remind the soldier to be very sparing of the ammunition until they could locate more since that seemed to be the one type of ammunition that had not been found at the checkpoint or roadblock or whatever that mess had been.
“If you take us up to Pecos, we should be past the Walmart and able to hang a left and get back on to Tropicana,” Joel called over the headset once everybody was situated.
They rolled past a neighborhood on the left that looked to have mostly burned to the ground. Joel made the determination that at least some of the damage looked relatively recent. To him, that meant looters had already come through the area. Given the mentality he assigned most of the younger generation, he figured they likely hit all the medicine cabinets and liquor cabinets before setting the homes on fire.
He’d seen enough footage on the news the past several days taken from news and military helicopters that showed the rampant looting. Most of the individuals he’d seen in those clips were younger. They somehow thought firing their weapons in the air and making collective asses of themselves was the best way to ride out a zombie apocalypse. He had a feeling that many of those sorts of idiots were now part of that herd of undead they’d just skirted.
“What the actual fuck,” Will’s voice crackled over Joel’s headset.
“What is it?” Debra asked as she took her foot off the gas just a bit as a precaution.
“Right around our two o’clock,” Will reported.
Joel and Debra leaned forward and looked off to their right in the general direction given. It took Joel a few seconds to make sense of what he was seeing, but once he did, he felt a chill seep into his blood. He actually rubbed his eyes to see if perhaps they’d been playing a trick on him.
“Are those…?” Debra’s voice faded.
“Children,” Will finished, confirming to each of them what they were seeing.
“There has to be close to fifty of them,” Joel breathed.
“Why are they just standing there?” Debra sounded like she still didn’t want to accept what her eyes were taking in. “Zombies don’t just stand there…as soon as they get wind of you, they head straight for you. That’s part of what makes them so damn easy to kill.”
“Well I guess the youngsters didn’t get the memo,” Will quipped.
As if to add credence to Debra’s observation, a trio of adult undead waded through the cluster of zombie children and came straight for the Humvee that had finally rolled to a stop. It was obvious that they were homing in on this newest sound of an idling engine as they made very slight corrections to their course until they were now on a beeline to their eventual target.
“Want me to mow ‘em down?” Will called when nobody seemed inclined to say or do anything.
“Yep,” Joel answered.
The ferocious chatter of the .50 cal sounded and brass casings clattered in a thunderous concert of death and destruction. The human body is in no way designed to take the power of a .50 caliber machine gun, and at such a relatively close range, bodies almost seemed to vaporize into clouds of dark mist. Joel watched as the children disintegrated under the onslaught. The adults that had closed the distance came apart, bits and pieces flying as Will poured hundreds of rounds of hot lead into them.
At last the noise ceased, and the world suddenly fell to an eerie silence even more pronounced than it had been just a few moments ago. The scene before them now was more of a massive stain with larger bits and pieces scattered about.
Debra started the Humvee moving again. As they came abreast of what revealed itself to once have been an elementary school, Joel barked for her to stop. He moved to the side hatch, his eyes flicking to where Peanut hid in a narrow spot between cases of ammo.
Without a word of explanation, he unfastened himself from the seat and exited the vehicle. He made sure to look around and ensure nothing was coming, but at the moment, he wanted to confirm what he’d thought he’d seen.
At last he came to a stop and stared down at the ground at the small object between his feet. Kneeling, Joel pulled a knife from his pocket and opened it, feeling the blade lock in place with a click that he felt more than heard. Poking with the tip of the blade, he had to fight the instinct not to jerk away.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Debra gasped from his left shoulder.
Joel had been so focused on the head of the little girl that he hadn’t heard the woman approach. He cocked his head as he waved the blade first to the left, then to the right. The filmed over eyes followed his every move.
“So they do see,” Debra breathed.
“I never thought otherwise,” Joel groaned as he got to his feet. “But this shot to the head thing is a bit more literal than I think I had realized. This thing was basically decapitated. The head is still…alive? I know that’s not the right word, but I can’t think of any other way to describe their state of being.”
“I hate to confirm my stupidity by opening my big mouth,” Debra said as she toed the pig-tailed zombie head with her military issue boots. “But who cares? What does this mean in the big scheme of things?”
Joel looked around and finally found what he was searching for. He paused for a moment as if unsure how to proceed. At last he turned to Debra. “Do you have any gloves?”
“Sorry.” She shook her head.
Peeling off his shirt to reveal an immaculate white tee shirt underneath, Joel returned to the little zombie girl’s head and picked it up by one filthy braid with his shirt as a very tenuous barrier between himself and the lock of twisted hair. He carried it to a shattered torso that had a softball-sized hole in the chest that had blown out most of the back, pulverizing the slender spinal column where the exit wound existed.
He set the head beside the body and then stepped back, folding his arms across his chest as he simply stood in silent observation for several seconds. At last he seemed satisfied.
“Umm, I hate to interrupt whatever it is you think you’re doing, but can you maybe fill me in?” Debra glanced around nervously, suddenly aware that the sea of carnage laid out before her was not entirely still. There were very small and subtle movements amidst all the flesh, blood, and bone slurry that remained too gruesome for her to actually process.
“I don’t know,” Joel finally admitted. “Something tells me that this is all important somehow. I just wish my Wanda were here. I would be willing to bet she could make sense of this madness.”
“What could possibly be important about—” Will began, but ended his question with a shriek as Joel snatched up the head and lobbed it at his feet.
“You were saying?” Joel snapped. “I believe this will have a purpose. Just give me a little time to figure out what it is.”
“Land mine,” Debra said with a snort. “Only, maybe you dangle these things from trees or something.”
There was a moment of silence before Joel clapped his hands in what could only be described as wicked glee. “We seem to have a window of opportunity here at the moment,” he announced. “Let’s see if we can find more of these.”
Unfortunately, they were only able to come up with three more functional heads. Two of them had most of their shoulders still intact but Joel remedied it with a swift stroke of a machete. They threw the heads into a burlap carry bag that had once contained an assortment of small tools that likely were used to keep the Humvee in working order.
Staring into the bag as Will climbed back into his turret and Debra slid behind the wheel, Joel was fascinated by how the heads seemed completely oblivious of one another. For the briefest of moments he considered where he might be heading. Would this be what Wanda had meant when she’d told him to survive…to live?
He recalled one of their conversations after she’d finished reading some zombie novel he couldn’t recall. She’d blasted the writer and the said the characters all seemed to be willing to rush into terrible situations and die.
“Why would you risk the lives of five people to save one?” she had ranted, slamming the book
down on the kitchen counter where Joel had been mincing some garlic for his special spaghetti sauce. “If I was with a group and somebody got themselves in trouble…sorry about your luck.”
“Heat of the moment,” Joel offered. “Happened in the battlefield all the time. Your instinct is to save your brothers.”
“Sure,” she conceded with a shrug, “but some rando you met the day before? Sorry, fella, but you just became a zombie snack. I sure as hell wouldn’t expect some stranger to dive into a bunch of the walking dead to maybe pull me free…and then of course they always find out that the person wasn’t really rescued. They were bitten or scratched so all those other people died for nothing.”
Joel had decided not to press the issue. After all, a zombie apocalypse was fiction…a product of Hollywood and twisted people who couldn’t just stick to real civilization killers like those old nuclear destruction movies of the Eighties, or even a meteor strike, earthquake, or global famine.
“Hey, where are we supposed to turn?” Debra’s voice brought Joel’s focus back to the here and now.
“Left on Pecos and then right on Tropicana,” Joel said, returning his gaze out the front window.
The Humvee rounded the first corner and came to an abrupt halt. Literally sprinting for them were three people. In the distance, exactly where they would need to turn right, dozens of the undead were in a slow but steady pursuit.
“Dammit,” Joel snarled. “Turn right there.” He leaned forward and pointed to a side street just ahead and to the right leading into a residential neighborhood.