Silence of the Apoc_Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse

by Martin Wilsey

  When his feet touch down on the hallway’s carpeted floor, Jim sees the Sheriff waiting in a crouch at the top of the stairs. Quietly he creeps over to her, taking a knee just behind her.

  “Well?” he whispers.

  She motions for him to stay silent then holsters the gun. He assumes that to mean the coast is clear, but then she takes hold of his flashlight and gives it a tug. At first, he resists, not wanting to give up his only weapon, but when she tugs again he relents.

  With catlike stealth, she begins to descend the stairs. Jim is impressed, considering the woman is pushing fifty and watches as she rounds the landing. Moving into position where she had been, he sees now that there seems to be a straggler. At first, he thinks the Sheriff will get the drop on the creature, no problem, but when there is the slightest, barely-audible creak of wood under her weight, the thing seems to perk up and listen. Jim thinks of a dog sensing something nearby, even when it can’t see it.

  The zombie turns, and in an instant lunges for the Sheriff. Again impressing Jim, Sheriff Patrick swings the flashlight—fast and hard—and catches the dead woman at the left temple. There is a sickening crack and a dull, metallic thwack as she—it—goes down at once, collapsing like a sack of bricks. Patrick looks up at Jim and motions for him to follow. He does so quietly.

  As Jim and Sheriff Patrick move toward the doorway it looks as though the way will be clear; they can neither hear nor see any sign of the living dead beyond the threshold. But when they get there, they see that not all of the zombies have yet departed. There are still a half-dozen or so lingering, and when two fresh meals step into view, it is only a heartbeat before they lunge into motion, hauling undead ass across the yard and even spilling over the low picket fence.

  Sheriff Patrick barely has time to get the front door shut before the zombies are on the porch. Then, as their bodies collide with the portal, it is nearly smashed in off its hinges. Both Jim and the Sheriff throw their own bodies against the thin slab of wood in hopes of keeping it in place. For the most part, it works, though there is no way for them to get away while they’re holding up the door; and they won’t be able to do that for long. Also, there are the many wildly reaching, clawing hands of unreasonably strong dead flesh that curl around the edges of the door—seeking any and all purchase.

  “I don’t think we can hold ’em for long!” Jim grunts.

  “No,” Sheriff Patrick agrees as the door shudders at her back. “We can’t.”

  Jim looks at her as she’s looking at him, and starts to shake his head.

  “Go, James…” she says, through gritted teeth, “Take the gun—and go.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Sheriff!”

  “Take the gun—”

  “No!”

  “Take the damn gun, Jim!”

  With a growl of annoyance, Jim reaches around and pulls the Sheriff’s gun from its holster. He starts to angle it around the edge of the door, intent on firing blindly and hoping to hit something, but Patrick tells him to stop.

  “You’ll just waste the last few rounds. And you’ll draw more of those things back here.”

  Again Jim lets out with a defeatist growl, banging the back of his head against the door.

  “Go, James.”

  “Sheriff—”

  “Go…”

  Growing up in Redfield, having known and dealt with Barbara Patrick from the time she was just a fledgling deputy, and he was old enough to break even the pettiest of laws, Jim knows that there’s no arguing with her. He lunges away from the door, turning back to her briefly and seeing that it’s all she can do to keep it in place as it is.

  “Good luck,” he says, hating the words and knowing they are utterly meaningless.

  “Run like hell…” Sheriff Patrick says, forcing a sorrowfully crooked smirk.

  He does as she says—turning and bolting through the house, through the kitchen and out the back door. There seem to be no zombies on this side of the house, maybe due to the high back fence, and Jim stays low as he runs for the back gate. He reaches it, and as he works the bolt that locks it, hears a crash—the sound of the door being forced in—followed immediately by the sound of Sheriff Patrick screaming. For an instant he wants to turn back, to run in with his one gun blazing (and likely missing everything), but knows that it’s already too late for her anyway.

  And it was her choice, he tells himself. Trying to believe it, he quietly opens the gate and slips from the backyard.

  ***

  Bill stares into the distance, toward the Sheriff’s house, waiting—hoping—for another sign that someone is there; that someone sees him. Even if there’s no way for them to reach him—or he them—just knowing he isn’t the last would make things marginally better. It’s been several minutes, though, and there haven’t been any more light signals. He even tried flashing his light that way, offering the standard S.O.S., but nothing more happened. He considers that maybe it was just some kind of fluke, maybe a sparking fuse-box or something, but doesn’t really believe it. The circle had been too perfectly formed; the on/off sequencing too meticulous. Someone had been signaling, he is sure, but he has no idea if they were even still alive.

  And now, trapped on the roof at his (former) place of employment, he is surrounded on all sides by more zombies than ever, probably the entire population of Redfield—minus those who had since been eaten.

  Sitting on the south-facing edge of the roof and hanging his feet over the edge, he feels a small measure of pleasure at the thought of being just out of the zombies’ reach. They stretch and strain, trying to get to him, but his boots dangle a good many inches above their grasp. Looking down at the slavering, monster faces with their blood-stained teeth—laced with ragged strips of flesh—he snorts a good glob of snot into his throat, hacks it up, and sends it bombing down to the screamer. It takes no notice as the thick, whitish dollop impacts against its forehead, then drips down into one pale-colored, bloodshot eye. It snarls and gnashes its teeth; they all do—hundreds of hungering jaws working almost in unison at the sight of food.

  ***

  Jim sprints from shadow to shadow, taking cover behind any and every hedge, bush, and a tree trunk that he comes to. He probably doesn’t need to, considering that all of the zombies seem to have congregated toward the center of town. Still, he decides it is better to be safe than sorry as he makes his way toward the south-most edge of town, toward the home of his best friend, Bill.

  Just a little further, he thinks, hunkering down next to a row of rose bushes that run along the edge of the trailer unit nearest the street. From his position, he can just see the gleam of moonlight that reflects off the front fender of Bill’s only remaining pride and joy: his truck. But here there do seem to be a couple of the lesser-informed walking dead. One he recognizes as Bill’s promiscuous neighbor, Sherry. The other he doesn’t know—and doesn’t want to—because even though he’s a zombie, he looks to be built like a brick wall, easily head and shoulders taller than Jim and as broad as an ox. With a sigh, Jim attempts to sneak as quietly as he can around the row of bushes and around the back-end of the trailer.

  There is a beat-up, compact car in the trailer’s port, and it, too, offers some cover. Unfortunately, it also serves to obstruct Jim’s view of the zombies, and that’s why he doesn’t notice when Sherry-zombie starts to wander his way—scenting the air like a predator on the trail of wounded prey. As he rounds the far side of the trailer, he lays eyes on brick-wall zombie and sees that the brute seems to be elbow-deep in a gopher hole. From where he hides, Jim can’t see the truck anymore but knows that Bill’s trailer is all the way at the end and furthest to the east side of the park. He also knows right where Bill keeps the spare key: tucked up in the wheel-well on a magnetic clip.

  He watches quietly as the big zombie digs desperately for whatever has gone down the hole, and wonders whether or not he’ll be able to sneak past the both of them. Edging stealthily forward he tries to peer around the front end of the trailer wit
h the rose bushes, trying to pinpoint Sherry-zombie’s precise location. He can’t seem to find her. Shit, he thinks, fingering the trigger of the .44. Where the hell did she go?

  Staying low, he inches toward the front end of the trailer, glancing back toward the giant zombie every other step. It snarls and growls as it struggles at the hole in the ground, and Jim sees that it is actually doing damage to itself—twisting, and ripping the flesh of its lower arm—and doesn’t seem to care or even notice. Nearing the corner, Jim gets right next to the trailer and slowly peeks around. There’s still no sign of the Sherry-zombie.

  Where the hell?

  Suddenly there is a yowling, animal-like cry from behind him, and he feels cold hands at the back of his neck.

  “SHIT!”

  Scurrying away on all fours, Jim turns to see Sherry-zombie just as she lunges. Losing her balance, she falls face-first to the concrete slab that the trailer sits on. Jim hears a thick cracking sound and can’t help but cringe. When Sherry-zombie’s head snaps back up to glare at him wildly, he sees that she has not only broken her nose, leaving it crooked and blood-soaked, but several of her teeth now lie on the concrete in a thick red puddle. Frozen, Jim watches as she struggles to get to her feet to get after him, in such a hurry that she can’t quite get her feet under her and ends up once again lunging face-first to the ground, this time to the hard dirt just beyond the concrete.

  Now Jim becomes aware of a ruckus over his shoulder. With a jolt of panic, he turns to see Brick, trying like hell to free his arm from the hole in the ground. Luckily, he seems to have actually gotten it lodged, and is having to throw his whole body-weight into the effort of trying to remove it.

  Jim turns once again at the sound of Sherry-zombie screeching deep in her throat, a sound similar to fingernails on a chalkboard, mixed with gargling blood. And this time she manages to get to her feet, immediately racing for Jim. Lying on his back, he raises the gun, pulling the trigger twice without aiming or even looking. When Sherry-zombie falls on him, she is truly dead weight, no longer revenant. With a shriek, Jim pushes her off, seeing that one of the bullets tore a burnt-edged, ragged hole in her pale flesh just above her left breast right at the neckline of her tank top; the other made a perfectly round entry wound just under her left eye—the exit, however, is quite a bit larger, embedded with minute fragments of skull that glisten in the moonlight.

  At the guttural howls of Brick behind him, Jim gets shakily to his feet, turning to aim the gun at the undead behemoth. Just then, with a final violent lurch, the zombie pulls free of the gopher hole—minus one arm from the elbow down. Jim has only a moment to gawk at the raggedly dismembered appendage before it breaks toward him in a sprint.

  “Oh, shit!” says Jim, backpedaling and firing the gun as the monster rushes him. It takes a bullet to the chest—which barely has an effect—another in the belly, which has just as little, and finally a grazing wound at the right side of the neck. Jim pulls the trigger again, and the gun only clicks; he tries once more and realizes he’s out. With another curse he throws the gun; it bounces off Brick’s chest and clatters to the dirt. Turning, he runs full-out, doing his best to evade the rapidly approaching zombie. With its one arm, it reaches out, swiping at the back of his shirt and grabbing only air. Jim realizes he’s running the wrong way and turns wide, changes direction, and starts back toward Bill’s truck. He doesn’t look back as he sprints full-speed, and only slows when he reaches the truck, practically sliding across the ground and onto the concrete.

  Brick still grunts and snarls, and from the edge of his vision, Jim sees that he is nearing, but already Jim has the key—is standing and working it into the door-lock. He ventures a glance just before yanking the door open—just in time to see Brick tripping over the body of Sherry-zombie. With a hoarse chuckle he hops up into the truck, yanks the door shut and jams the key in the ignition. It takes a couple of tries for the engine to turn over, and by then Brick has gotten to his feet and is right outside the truck. The zombie’s face is level with Jim’s shoulder and pressed against the window grotesquely. Jim thinks if it were smarter it could just smash the glass with a single blow from its one good, muscular arm.

  The engine roars and Jim puts the truck in drive. He jams his foot on the gas pedal and tears out of the carport, sending Brick reeling to the ground and leaving him in a cloud of dust. As he speeds out of the trailer park, he feels Sherry-zombie beneath the front left wheel, like a soft, squishy speed bump.

  ***

  Bill paces the rooftop of the gas station. The drone of the zombies has begun to fray his nerves. He could hear them before—from inside the jail—though only faintly. And moments ago a number of gunshots rang out from somewhere in the distance, off to the south. It wasn’t exactly from the direction of the Sheriff’s house, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t her. After all, Bill figurs, if there was one woman he knew who would be able to take care of herself with all that was going on, it was Sheriff Patrick.

  The shotgun is heavy, and he keeps swapping it from hand to hand; grimly he wonders if he’ll end up using it on himself—just like Burke did. He tells himself no because he’d rather die trying than just give up like that. But there are literally zombies on all sides of him, and absolutely no way to get past them.

  Can’t go over; can’t go around; have to go through.

  And even if he tried to clear a path, with only a dozen shells he wouldn’t make much of a dent in the dead-sea. He groans and it crescendos into a yell, aimed at the zombies, though doing no actual good. Then he hears another sound—something familiar that starts beneath the unintelligible “zombie-talk,” then growing louder.

  It sounds like a truck.

  It sounds like his truck.

  Can’t be…

  Suddenly, from a few blocks east, Bill sees four bright points of light—a light bar—and two more below those—headlights.

  “No way…”

  He watches as the truck—indeed, his truck—tears up the street in his direction. Many of the zombies take notice, and a good number of them begin to turn and run in that direction. Hopeful, Bill jogs over to the building’s edge; but his hopes are dashed at the sight he sees: there are still a good many zombies right there waiting for him. Looking back to his truck he feels a slight catharsis at the sight of innumerable undead being easily plowed under. He can’t yet tell who is driving, and he surely hopes that whoever it is not only sees him but is coming to save him. Gripping the shotgun tightly in both hands he watches as the truck swerves up the street, mowing through the walking dead with ease.

  Come on, come on, come on…

  The truck accelerates, veers right—toward the gas station—and zombie bodies go flying. As one tumbles up and over the hood, slamming against the windshield and flying over the light bar, Bill can’t help but cringe. But he doesn’t care about a little body damage at this point, not if it means getting off the roof, getting away from Redfield, and getting away from zombies.

  The truck rapidly slows to a stop mere feet from the side of the building, crushing and pinning some walking corpses between brick and bumper. Bill shields his eyes from the glare of the light bar with one hand, peering down into the cab of the truck. There, he is beyond surprised to see his best friend, Jim, sitting behind the wheel and wearing a stupid grin.

  “Jim?” he calls.

  Jim rolls the driver side window down a crack and calls back, “Need a ride?”

  Bill nods, mouth quirking into a smile of relief. “Back it up to the building,” he says.

  Jim puts the truck into reverse and backs it into the street. Making a three-point turn—and taking out a dozen zombies in the process—he then backs it as close to the building as he can get it.

  Bill watches—almost happily—as Screamer, among others, is crushed to the wall and his stomach is impossibly and grotesquely squeezed out through his mouth. A split-second later he feels his gorge and thinks he might just lose it right over the side of the building. As he retches
, Jim double-taps the horn; regaining himself, he steps right up to the ledge, looking down into the truck bed.

  To his surprise, the zombie from earlier—the one who went flying over the truck’s hood and roof—is lying there, twisted and broken from the waist down. She looks up at him, snarling, hands clawing at the air, desperately wanting to reach him. Reluctantly Bill shoulders the shotgun, taking aim at the dead woman’s head. Fingering the trigger, he hesitates a moment.

  “Bill?” Jim calls from the cab.

  “Yeah,” Bill calls back, “just a sec.”

  He squeezes the trigger; the shotgun kicks and reports instantaneously. The zombie’s head explodes, splattering the back glass of the truck as well as most of the bed-liner nearby with gore. With that, he hops down from the ledge, into the truck bed, and, moving past the twice-dead body, hunkers down next to the cab. He smacks the back glass twice. “Go!”

  Jim does as his friend instructs, putting the truck in drive and turning the wheel hard to the right as he accelerates.

  In the back of the truck, Bill sways; he holds tight as desperately clinging zombies fall away a few at a time, left behind as they quickly shrink into the distance. Jim takes a right, and again Bill must hold tight to the truck bed where it meets the cab, his other hand holding just as firmly to the shotgun. And as they turn the corner, there is still a veritable sea of zombies lining the street. They pelt the front end of the truck as it pushes through the horde, and Bill is glad for the larger after-market wheels and tires he put on, as the added height keeps him well out of the things’ full reach.

  As the truck reaches the end of the street, past the zombies, Jim instinctively slows it to a stop at the corner. Bill takes the opportunity to quickly hop out of bed and goes to the passenger-side door. He tries the handle, and it is locked. He raps on the window with his knuckles; Jim is already fingering the auto-unlock switch. Bill pulls the door open and hastily jumps in. As they start into motion once more, he can see the zombies coming up fast in his mirror.