by TW Brown
He waited for the zombie to approach, but instead, it stood fast, cocking its head first one way then the other as it appeared to study him. Joel couldn’t help but stare into its filmed over, tracer riddled eyes. He wondered why it didn’t come any closer. Zombies never hesitated when they spotted a living person. He wasn’t sure how they could tell; whether it was by smell or some other manner. What he did know for certain was that zombies did not attack each other; and they did not hesitate if they located a living being. Yet, this child did not advance. This was the second time he’d seen this behavior.
Curious, Joel took a step forward. The zombie child retreated! That was absolutely something new and different. He was wondering if this might make the child versions easier to kill, and brought his machete up as he cocked his arm and prepared to strike when the child lurched forward. Just that fast, it was the same as any of a million other undead. It came for him, hands clutching at the air, mouth opening and closing with an audible click as tiny teeth snapped together.
Joel struck fast, bringing his heavy-duty blade down on the crown of the zombie child’s head. There was a crunch, and the child crumbled to the floor—again, just like any other zombie. A moment later, what had once been a rather rotund African-American woman stumbled out into the room from the same pantry closet. She had small bites up and down her arms that were probably defensive wounds, and one side of her face looked like it had been savaged. Bare skull peeked through in places, adding to the zombie’s sinister appearance. He stepped in and finished her off as well and then ensured there were no other surprises lurking in the pantry before returning to the team.
He related what he’d witnessed in the child zombie and did not miss the raised eyebrows of his two much younger team members. The only thing they seemed to take as gospel was his explanation of the baby cry sound. That was a story that was already making the rounds through the community.
They finished the check of the house, exited, and marked it. This continued through the morning as they went through the process of going house to house, ensuring each one was empty. Best estimates had this single job taking as much as three days before the entire Lake Mead View community complex was secure.
A barricade had been erected where Quartz Road exited the main community at the southeast corner as Red Rock Road made its wide, lazy bend. A wall of sorts had been erected on that hill that made up a natural barrier to the south with lookout towers every hundred feet to allow them to look towards the rest of Boulder City. The hills that made the eastern border had a similar setup with the towers a bit more widely spaced. Cars and trucks had been brought in and used to create a barricade along Highway 93 and the western border. The northern border was marked with a ten-foot-deep and six-feet across trench that was butted by a berm made by the excavated earth and then a fence topped with razor wire.
As far as the perimeter, Joel was happy with the measures taken to ensure their security. With the engineering team assuring him that they would have power on within the next seventy-two hours, he was anxious to get the place clear. While there had not been any complaints yet about the accommodations at the dam, he knew that it was simply human nature to become accustomed to a certain level of comfort and then long for better. This should keep the masses placated for the foreseeable future.
The clearing was going well as the day wore on. His team was outside a residence while the other team cleared when he heard the scream that could only mean somebody had been bitten.
“Keep alert and stay put,” Joel ordered as he approached the house.
The closer he got, the louder the sounds of some sort of scuffle could be heard. He took off at a jog as he reached the stairs leading up to the open front door.
“Get her off, get her off!” a strained sounding man’s voice begged.
Joel stepped into the entry hall and paused just long enough for his vision to acclimate before hurrying up the stairs to where the sounds of his team locked in what sounded like a horrific battle drifted down to his ears. When he reached the top of the landing, he paused. Part of him understood what he was seeing, but another part of him struggled to make sense of it.
Two of the team were on the floor struggling to fend off a dozen zombie children. The third member of the team was in a corner with his back against the walls, slashing out at another four of the tiny terrors that were hissing, moaning, and snapping their teeth as they sought to get hold of him. One child was sprawled on the floor, a massive divot in the middle of its forehead where the hand axe the man wielded had obviously connected.
Rushing in, Joel grabbed the first child by the collar of her shirt and threw her to one side, hardly noticing as it crashed into the wall hard enough to knock a collection of mounted photographs to the floor in a crash of breaking glass. He kicked the next one’s feet from under it and stomped down hard on the back of its neck before chopping into the back of its head with his machete.
Three of the child zombies turned toward this new distraction and came for him with none of the hesitation he’d seen earlier. Wasting no time, Joel moved in and shoved the closest one aside, chopped on the next one, and kicked out at the third; all in a span of a few heartbeats. The one he pushed started for him again, but he was able to end the one he’d knocked down before exterminating the third.
The closest team member on the floor was holding a single zombie child at bay with each hand. He held one by the throat, and the other by the hair. The one he held by the hair was a little girl of perhaps six or seven. She had long, blonde hair in a matted and filthy ponytail which the man on the floor had wrapped around one fist. The left side of her face—which was the side Joel approached from—had been torn and she was missing her eye. The nose had been ripped away, leaving nothing but a dark crater in the center of her face where it had once been.
Joel was stepping in to help when the girl jerked hard. A small rip on her forehead began to part. Joel froze. He couldn’t help but watch in fascination as that tiny part in the skin began to widen. The skull beneath was a dull gray, and thick dark blood oozed across its surface making it seem even darker. The rip widened, and then a huge piece of the girl’s scalp peeled back.
A split-second later, the man started to scream as the zombie child’s mouth clamped onto his lower lip and chin. Thankfully, those screams were quickly muted as blood filled the man’s mouth and then went down his throat, choking him and signaling his end. Booted feet thrummed on the floor as the man initially began to kick and thrash. Joel shook his head, stepped in, and ended the poor man’s struggles with a swift chop that severed the man’s head from his body as well as cutting through the girl who’d bitten him, effectively and figuratively killing two birds with one stone. He moved onto the other zombie child that had gotten free from the man’s grip after the girl had bitten him, and then ended the one trying to reach its feet and come for him now that Joel was the most active living thing in its view.
By the time he finished, the person in the corner had cut down two more attackers, but the other person on the floor was a goner. That had obviously been the one whose scream Joel had first heard. There were a few bites on the person’s arms, face, and hands, and a good-sized pool of blood had spread around the body to stain the hardwood floors in a crimson sheen. Joel didn’t wait for what he knew would be coming and stepped in to end the person’s chances of returning with a machete chop to the head. Once he finished off the children that had been feasting on the body and practically ignoring his presence except to hiss up at him when he moved in to end each one, he took down what proved to be the last zombie that had been trying to get to the person in the corner.
As the last zombie child fell to the floor, the man in the corner dropped to his knees and began to sob. His body shook and his eyes seemed to be trying desperately to avoid looking at the scene that lay out before him.
“What in God’s name happened?” Joel finally asked after the person, whose name he realized he could not recall, did nothing but continue sob
bing in great hitching fits.
“There was just one,” the young man sobbed. He looked up at Joel, and then again his eyes scanned the carnage scattered about. “We thought it would be a simple in-and-out job. One zombie kid couldn’t be much of a problem…right?”
Joel looked around the room. He counted seventeen bodies sprawled about. That didn’t count his two people that he’d had no choice but to kill.
“We came up the stairs and it just stared at us…the strangest thing I’d ever seen. We kept thinking it would start down the stairs after us. Hell, Doug even started calling to it, telling it that everything would be okay and that all its troubles would be over in a matter of seconds.” The man glanced at the body of the man Joel had killed second—the one who’d obviously been the source of the scream. “We were just a few steps from the top when the damn thing turned and walked away. None of us had ever seen anything like it.”
“Like what?” Joel felt his blood chill a few degrees. If he would’ve glanced down at the small patch of bare skin between his shirt sleeves and his gloves, he would’ve seen his skin pebble with goose flesh.
“It was like they were waiting for us…like a trap. We reached the top of the stairs and it was still just the one. All the doors looked like they were closed, but they weren’t. Not all the way at least. At least I’m pretty sure. God, please let that be true or it’s even worse—” The man’s tempo had started to speed up. And it was clear that he was verging on hysterics.
Joel smacked him with a firm backhand. The man didn’t appear to register the pain, but he swallowed once, and then continued much calmer.
“They came from all the rooms. It was like they heard some signal, because all the doors opened at damn near the same time and all of a sudden we had all these…” The man waved his arm to indicate the bodies scattered on the floor. “But these ones didn’t attack at first either. They just stepped out and seemed to be studying us. They just stood there, heads tilting one way, then the other.”
The man went silent again, and his eyes scanned the room, but this time, it looked as if he might really be seeing the carnage for what it was. His eyes lingered longest on the fallen bodies of his former comrades.
“They weren’t trying to attack us. Doug knelt down and tried to talk to the damn things…for real this time. It was like he couldn’t see their eyes…the horrible injuries that gave them away for what they were. Then he went to put his knife in his belt.”
This time, when the man went silent, Joel knew what he would be seeing. It was like a switch being thrown, he was willing to wager on it if he were a betting man.
“They just became…zombies. All that hesitation…all that bit about them being different? It vanished in the blink of an eye and that closest one threw itself on Doug. He never stood a chance.” The man shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut. “Then they all just came at us. It was like trying to escape a wood chipper.”
“On your feet,” Joel finally said after giving the man a moment to gather himself.
Without waiting, Joel turned and headed down the stairs. He reached the door and glanced back to see that the man had indeed gotten to his feet and was now following him outside the house.
“We’re cutting it off early today,” Joel announced, and then marked the house as cleared.
“But it’s barely past midday,” one of his people argued. Joel didn’t look to see who, and didn’t care.
The group loaded into the transport truck and returned to the dam after the other two groups were also called in and told that the day was over. All the way back to the dam Joel thought about the child he’d encountered and then ran through everything he could remember about what had happened to his team. By the time he reached their base at the dam, he had at least a rudimentary solution.
Thirty minutes later, all personnel who ventured outside the perimeter were mustered in the auditorium of the visitor’s center. Joel had the one survivor of the group he’d been teamed with come forward and relate the events just as had been reported to him. Once that was finished, he stepped behind the podium and waited for the murmurs to die down.
“I think we can now make the leap that the youngsters who have been turned are just a little different,” Joel started and then went on to relate his own experience. “I want to make it clear that, from this point forward, any child zombie encountered is to be shot on sight. Anybody who can’t follow that order needs to have themselves reassigned right now.”
After waiting a few moments to see if anybody would take his offer of resigning their position, Joel continued, “The teams will now consist of five members each. That will reduce us to five teams. I want four teams out at a time working in the perimeter. The fifth team will be stationed at the main gate to act as support. All teams will have two designated radiomen. I want check-ins every quarter hour with a location. The team staying in reserve will update the map we have of this place with locations of all mobile units.”
When the meeting broke and everybody was told to be ready to move out at first light in the morning, Joel allowed himself to process everything. Zombies had been bad. Humans had proved to be a larger threat than he’d originally figured, and now…zombie children that appeared to have at least some form of limited cognition or reasoning power.
He hated to let that thought free in the cosmos since he knew it was usually answered with something even worse, but he could not help but think, What’s next?
***
Joel moved down the hallway. He stepped over the body that had rotted to the point where it appeared to have melded with the carpeted floor and paused at the door to his left. He could hear wet smacking sounds mixed in with the occasional mewl of what might be somebody in pain.
Taking a deep breath, Joel closed his fist and held it up to halt the individuals behind him. Continuing to hold his breath, he leaned just enough to see inside the room.
The fact that this side of the house faced the rising sun would be a blessing any other time. But now, it allowed him to see in graphic detail what had been making those horrible wet noises.
The man was naked. The back of his right leg was torn apart, but the wound was almost dry, indicating it was an old injury from early on in the zombie uprising no doubt.
From the looks of things, the man had been aware of his eventual fate and chosen to end it by putting a pistol in his mouth and blowing his brains all over the wall. Crowded around the corpse were at least twenty cats of various sizes. His eyes fixed on what had once been a large, silver Persian. It regarded him for just a few seconds before resuming in its attempt to pull away a piece of flesh from the dead man’s side. Its whiskers were dark with blood, and its teeth almost appeared black.
“Welcome to the Hungry Cat Buffet,” Joel muttered. “Your server will be the main course.”
He knew that cats were sort of famous for being considered heartless animals, and that it was popular to tell the stories of cat owners dying only to be found days later with their cats feeding on them. Personally, he didn’t see the problem. Survival is instinctive. Some creatures show a greater aptitude than others.
Another of the cats looked up at him. This one a Calico with patches of black, orange, yellow, and white all over. It opened its mouth and let loose with a loud mewling sound that matched what he’d heard just a moment ago. However, he also noticed that every single cat’s head popped up. Every set of eyes rolled his way and fixed on him as he stood in the doorway. A few of the cats closest to him began to slink his direction.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Joel said, fighting to keep the sudden shiver that ran down his spine from leaking out in his tone.
Behind him, the rest of the team were busy searching the other rooms. He’d been chosen to actually remain in the hallway as support, but was free to roam its length as long as he was available for anybody who might find a nasty surprise while they cleared the residence.
He was leaning against the wall when a flash of light caught him off guard and
caused him to jump. He heard other members of the team curse or yelp at the same time as lights when on throughout the residence.
“Power’s on!” somebody yelled needlessly.
Something hissed and popped in what Joel had figured to be the master bedroom when he’d passed by its open door. There was a crackle, a pop, and then…a human voice.
“…we are based at the Hoover Dam. If you can work, and are prepared to join us wholeheartedly, then come to one of our entry gates and submit to being checked by our medical staff. We are only accepting able bodies free of injury. Children under the age of fourteen are prohibited.” There was a pause, and then the recorded loop began again. “If you are within the sound of my voice and want not to simply survive, but to carve out a life for yourself, then consider joining us. We are based at the Hoover Dam…”
Joel smiled. He’d approved the basic script written and recorded by Debra. A few of the citizens had paled at the part about not accepting children when it had been announced. The meeting had been an eye-opener for many of the citizens.
“Tell me what purpose there is to admitting an infant?” Debra had risen from her seat and climbed to the podium when the first murmurs had flowed through the assembled crowd. “Can they labor? Scavenge? Patrol the perimeter?” She paused long enough to allow her words to sink in. “The answer is that they cannot. All they can do is drain our very finite resources.
“It’s the human thing to do,” somebody shouted.
“Is it really?” Debra stepped to the edge of the dais and planted her hands on her hips. “And which of you is willing to forgo their food or water each day? Who will offer to go without sleep in order to not only perform the necessary tasks involved with caring for a child, but also their duties required to ensure the safety and security of the community?”
A silence fell over the group and Debra smiled. “If you people don’t get beyond the way things were done in the past, I’m afraid you won’t last long in the new world. Make no mistake…things have changed.”