Adrift

by Trimboli, TJ

  Probably more mind games.

  A rock struck him behind the ear. He yelped grabbing at his ear. A welt had already formed, blood trickling from the scratch it left. He turned to see a man standing in the open field behind them. He couldn’t be certain but he thought he saw the man put a solitary finger up to his lips.

  What the fuck is he going on about?

  “HEY! You nicked me in the ear you prick!” Kevin shouted.

  The man shook his hands side to side like he was wiping counters or some shit.

  “Where the fuck have you all been hiding? I’ve been searching for hours…I think. You had me all thinking I was crazy!” Kevin screamed at the top of his lungs.

  The man turned running for the forest. He now saw a large group of kids, and young adults alike all hiding up in the trees. One of the kids let down a ladder to help the rock thrower up.

  What the fuck is that about?

  Behind him, the dormant young woman stirred as if she smelled Thanksgiving dinner from the kitchen. The smell led her right to Kevin. The cart never shook, and he never even felt her kiss upon his neck until it was too late.

  Acid is a hell of a drug.

  SYRIA

  At first, Malik thought he was a goner. All he saw was blackness and what little sound permeated his ears came in muffled.

  The bomb must have went off right next to me.

  He felt someone grab hold and pull him upright.

  My legs still work, that’s a start.

  The ringing in his ears began to dissipate and all his faculties returned. The screams and sheer panic were the first things he heard. After that, the explosions. Bombs were dropping two at a time at such a frequency he was surprised everyone hadn’t been blown to smithereens. His tunnel vision let up, giving sight to the terror before him.

  The sun had set in the background leaving the sky a darkened blood red. A summer’s sunset if he ever saw one. On the horizon, thousands of the infected ravaged the land tearing at every man, woman, and child they could get their hands on. The dead lay all around him. He spotted three of his men still standing, each dispatching a round into the heads of the deceased.

  The dead don’t stay dead anymore. “Echo Squadron, on me!” Malik shouted.

  His team dropped back to his formation.

  Malik kicked a door in to the sand hut next to him, his team following.

  A family resided inside cowering in the corner.

  “Zain, the family,” Malik barked. “Hollander, on the window.” Their linguistics man ushered over to calm them down.

  Corporal Hollander ran to the window setting up shop with his rifle.

  Malik grabbed a wooden box setting it upside down.

  Private Stenz dropped a map of the land upon it.

  “Where are we?” Malik asked.

  Stenz pointed to the middle of the map. “Right here sir. Evac point is all the way over here,” Stenz said moving his hand to the far right side of the map.

  The same area Malik had watched thousands of infected come from. “This is fucked. Evac point is most likely a bust, those things came from that way, many of them wearing our very uniforms. Chances are our base is KIA.”

  Hollander opened fire. “Die you sons of bitches. Zombie fucks!” he shouted.

  “How we holding?” Malik asked.

  “Not much longer sir, this town is fubar,” Hollander replied.

  “We head for these mountains on the outskirts of the town. We can hole up in there, create a perimeter and hold our position until daybreak. After that, we head for Damascus.” Stenz folded up the map as Malik stood up.

  “Zain, the family ready?” Malik asked.

  “As ready as their gonna be, Captain.”

  “Alright, stay tight, conserve ammo, aim for the face. Rescue any we can along the way.

  Understood?” Malik commanded.

  “YES, SIR!” They replied.

  “Just like playing Left for Dead back on base. Light em up by any means necessary.” They all stood at the door waiting Malik’s command. He lifted three fingers up.

  THREE.

  TWO.

  ONE.

  Hollander kicked the door open and raced out into the war zone.

  Malik brought up the rear. Citizens were dropping like flies. Two zombies came tearing at Malik, he dropped them both with one shot each. He turned to see a woman having her back sliced into pieces of ham by two zombies. He went to shoot but stopped, it pained him to leave that woman to die, but two zombies eating were two that weren’t chasing them. He followed his unit as they moved house by house. Each one lay abandoned and in ruin. They stopped for a breather in a dilapidated sand hut. Their party of four had grown to a party of eight. Malik passed his water canteen to a young boy ahead of him.

  Hollander kicked the door in front of him open, three zombies tore through it taking Hollander to the ground. He shot one off of him while the other two went for the unarmed citizens they swore to protect.

  A woman in a hijab was torn in two before she ever had a second to defend herself.

  Zain shot the remaining two in the head.

  Hollander jumped off the zombie screaming bloody murder.

  Malik ran over to him to see the damage.

  Hollander pulled his gun on him. “Stay back! Captain, you know what happens to the ones who get bit. We’ve all seen this movie before!” Hollander shouted as blood dripped off his arm.

  “Zain, the woman?” Malik asked.

  “Dead, sir,” Zain replied.

  Malik turned around putting a bullet in the woman’s cranium. “Now she’s dead, private.” They all looked at Hollander who was kicking the furniture around him.

  “What do you need?” Malik asked.

  “Couple grenades would be nice. Any extra C4 we got lying around.” “Stenz,” Malik shouted.

  Stenz walked towards Hollander handing him a bandolier of grenades. “No C4,” Stenz said dourly.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. Go on, get the fuck out of here!” Hollander yelled at them.

  “You heard the man, move out,” Malik said.

  Stenz took lead out the door, followed by many of the unarmed citizens and Zain.

  Malik took the rear, giving one last nod to Hollander before exiting.

  Outside, they zig zagged to avoid falling bombs. Their formation was fucked and until they made it past the open desert field, it was every man for himself. A bomb exploded in front of Malik. He dodged to the side taking shelter under a Turkish pine. There was so much chaos around him, he knew not where to turn. He heard gun fire from behind him. He looked back the way he came and could just barely make out the hut they’d left Hollander in. Bright flashes sparked in succession from the room. He heard a large explosion from the area and dust funneled through the windows.

  Rest now. Your fight is over.

  The bombs had ceased for a moment and he took off. Malik had lost sight of the front of the group. The sand was kicking up in all directions so badly, he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of him. A kid came into view falling to the ground in front of him. He stopped to pick him up. As he grabbed the boy’s arm, a grenade went off on top of the child. Malik fell back ducking for cover. The debris fell and covered Malik in blood and guts. He saw he was holding onto a severed arm. He dropped it, looking for his rifle.

  GRRRRRRRRR!

  The sound of rabid wolves approaching lifted his gaze. A zombie tumbled right into him knocking him over. They fumbled for position rolling down a hill. The zombie landed on top of Malik biting at him. Malik choked the zombie, holding his jaws mere inches from his face. Spit and foam fell from the its mouth coating Malik’s face in fluids. The zombie inched closer, his teeth grazing over Malik’s flesh. A rifle exploded into the zombie’s face knocking it off. Malik looked up to see Zain standing over him. He helped Malik up handing him back his firearm.

  The zombie came back at them.

  Malik pulled out his knife stabbing it in the left eye of the creatu
re. He took his time taking this one’s life.

  Four zombies crested over the top of the hill running straight for them. A bomb went off igniting them all into pieces.

  “WE NEED TO MOVE!” Zain shouted grabbing Malik away.

  They knelt down moving as fast as they could back up the hill.

  “Where are the others?” Malik asked.

  “Up ahead a block or so, inside the school.”

  They made their way towards the school behind the houses to avoid the zombies. The gunfire had died down but the bombing had never been stronger. There was a strange lull over the battlefield. Malik had a strong suspicion that they were all that was left of the living.

  Just before they reached the school, hordes of zombies flooded the sandy streets. The wind had kicked up, making visibility near zero.

  They ducked inside a home beside them. Grabbing the table, they covered up the window. The house was pitch black. They pulled their infrared goggles over their eyes. Scanning the room, they saw that they were alone.

  Malik pulled out his walkie. “Stenz, come in. Do you copy?” The radio cackled, only static coming through.

  Zain knelt next to him.

  “Stenz, come in. This is Malik. Do you copy?” STATIC.

  A table collapsed in the corner. They drew their aim in that direction to discover a naked child standing in the corner. It was hard to tell in the dark but the child looked pale white, almost like a ghost or that creepy kid from the grudge. The kid stood crying.

  Zain slowly made his way towards the kid. “It’s alright, buddy. We’re not going to hurt you.

  We’re the good guys. We can get you out of here.”

  The radio cackled to life, Stenz’ voice emitting through, “Captain! Captain. Come in. Do you copy?”

  “I copy son. Calm down, is anyone hurt? Are you okay?”

  “We lost a lot sir. There’s only three of us left. Jesus, they came out of nowhere. Where are you sir?”

  Zain was mere feet away from the young boy.

  The boy stood curiously staring at the approaching officer.

  “We’re fine Stenz. Across the street from the school.”

  The radio cackled and was silent for a few agonizing moments.

  “Did you say across the street from the school?”

  “Roger that, son.”

  “You need to move now sir! That’s where they hit us.”

  “Who hit you Stenz? The zombies?”

  “It’s not just the zombies, sir. The kids. They have kids with them. I don’t know how, they don’t look like zombies, they’re just pale. They’re as white as can be and cold to the touch. You need to get out of—” The line went cold.

  “ZAIN! Get back!” Malik shouted.

  He looked over at the child now seeing the smoke drift off the frigid body of the boy.

  Zain lay at his feet, blood gushing from his throat.

  Malik pointed his rifle unloading it on the boy.

  The door beside him exploded open crashing into him. The gun went flying into the dark, his goggle’s shattering upon impact with the floor. Malik turned over to see a hulkingly large man standing in the doorway. He had to bend down to even walk into the house. As he did, Malik got a good look of the man.

  He stood naked, the skin flayed from his body. A towering sac of meat, muscle, and tendons all pulsating in rhythm with each other.

  Malik stood in horror of the man, if he could even call him one.

  He lifted Malik up by the neck with one arm as if he were a small child and squeezed.

  AFRICA

  Nia scooped up the infant in her arms. It was the last child left in the hut, the rest waited for her just outside. She made her way to the door, stopping at the broken mirror on the wall. She hadn’t had a minute to relax since the first wave of attacks. She peered at her reflection unsure of who the person was staring back at her. Her ebony skin had been torn, three gashes stretching the length of her face. She did her best to remain calm, she had children to protect. There would be a time and a place to grieve but now was not it.

  Outside, she rounded up the small group of children. They all huddled near each other, shaking and crying. Night was in full effect and all manners of evil were out and about. She looked around her village at her people scrambling to make sense of what transpired. The men raced to fortify their position, the women built a grand fire for the bodies, and the children, well the children would be leaving with her. She was smart enough to realize they would be back, and next time they would leave no survivors. This temporary respite was all they had.

  She reached the jeep left by the safari guide, the keys still in the ignition. One by one, she hoisted the children up.

  A figure grabbed her by the arm. “What are you doing?” he asked in his native tongue. By the light of his torch, the village elder was a ghastly sight. Half of his hair was missing, cut down to the scalp. A blotch of dried mud rested in his left eye socket, his bottom lip was mangled to the point she wondered how he could still utter even the simplest of words. He’d been ravaged by the beasts.

  “I am taking the children into Kenya,” she replied.

  “It is not safe out there.” “And it is in here?” she shouted.

  He made no reply.

  “Those beasts will be back and when they do—” “AHHHHHH! RUN!” voices shouted from afar.

  They searched for the voice of the commotion to see two lions break through the barriers into camp.

  Nia scooped up as many of the children as fast as she could. “Start the car!” Nia shouted to the elder.

  He ran around her towards the driver’s door. He grabbed the latch and felt a sharp pain in his leg that pinned him against the car. He screamed.

  Nia turned toward him to see the largest lion she’d ever seen in her life chomping into the elder’s leg. He tore it off with ease. The elder slid down the side of the car leaving a streak of blood. He dropped his torch beside him. The lion came back in for the kill illuminating the savage beast before her. Its eyes were blood red with its pupils sloshing from side to side like a pretentious socialite sniffing his wine. Flesh dripped from its fangs, its beautiful mane stained red. Its body had dozens of large bite marks like it got into a fight with a fellow male, which struck her as odd since most male lions would finish off its combatant after such savage bites.

  The children screamed. Nia tried to quiet them but to no avail.

  The lion turned its attention towards the children. It stared up at them licking its lips.

  Nia grabbed the last child, a young boy of thirteen. “Listen to me, when I get the lion away from the jeep, you get in the driver’s side, and you don’t stop until you reach Kenya. Do you understand me?”

  The boy was crying too hard to respond. She slapped him. He stifled his cries nodding his head. She kissed the boy’s forehead and took off. The sudden departure caught the lion’s glance. It took off after her. She ran as hard as she could but she got mere feet before the lion pounced on her tearing its claws into her back. She screamed as she went down. The lion bit into her spine.

  “ARGHHHHHHHHH!” she yelled. Blood poured out from her mouth.

  I wonder if this is the same one who scratched me?

  It mattered not, soon she would be dead but at least the children would be safe. She never managed to turn around to be sure, nor did she ever hear the roar of the engine.

  MANHATTAN

  Jim sat in his chair same as he always had every morning since he began working at the U.N. Today was a record for him, he hadn’t left his chair since the internet went out. That was four days prior. As the world went to ruin around him, Jim sat catatonic. They had went over a memo months ago about the problem at the Indigo Power Plant but all warnings went unheeded and why wouldn’t they? They always did and nothing had ever happened before. A few hundred fish may die, some trees and plants but nothing catastrophic.

  Until now.

  It was daylight at the moment, Jim’s worst time of day. That wa
s when the bombs started. It took twenty four hours after the electronics went out for New York to fall to the dead. Sixteen hours after that, the bombs commenced. New York became a war zone, a ground zero a hundred times worse than anything that came before it.

  I never thought anyone would ever be so foolish to attack New York again.

  Unlucky for Jim, it wasn’t just anyone but their own selfish skullduggery coming back to claim them all. He looked around at the few of them that were left. They started as a group of hundreds but when shit hit the fan, many foolish people set out to escape the city. They were more than likely dead now. The few left were all that remained of the U.N. All that remained of the city for all he knew. He’d been too much of a chicken to ever walk to the windows to see.

  Across the street, buildings burned, one collapsing from the heat. The destruction woke the rest of his group up. They let out shrieks of terror but none outright screamed. They backed against the walls as far from the windows as possible.

  Jim sat in his chair. It was the one place he felt safe. The last place on earth that was his tie to his old life. Whenever he finally got up from this seat, that would be it—his old life would be over. He had no idea if his family was still alive nor anyway to contact them but as long as he sat in this seat, he could pretend. Pretend that he would still be heading home after a long day of working in this chair. But it was a lie.

  The debris from the collapsed building ricocheted into the windows cracking a few of them but thankfully, they held firm. It left the outside world around them a cloud of brown smoke. Jim turned to see the world leader of Italy calming down the people around him. He’d risen when so many cowered, Jim included. He was fine not being the hero, he never tried to be and was sure if he did, he would fail.

  Six of the fourteen world leaders that had come to this summit were with them now, most likely all that was left of the world’s command infrastructure.

  A low grumbling permeated Jim’s ears; what sounded like a thousand wolves fighting over a slab of meat.

  The Italian world leader walked past Jim towards the window. He couldn’t tell from his back what he was witnessing but it couldn’t be good. The rest of the group behind him walked to the window as well. Some of the women shrieked.