by Javan Bonds
He walked out of the room, shocked and horrified. Before he could take another step, he turned to expel the contents of his stomach. When finished, he turned in the opposite direction to the room at his left.
As he exited the room of horrors, he realized exactly what was going on here. This was Silence of the Lambs. He was only surprised there had not yet been some sort of brilliant, eccentric cannibal to reveal himself. Oh well, the peevies were eating human flesh. He guessed that was close enough.
Anthony Hopkins was the image playing through his mind as he stepped into the next room. Man, was he way the fuck off.
In what was obviously staged as a dining room there were at least six peevies sitting around the table, completely still. What the fuck? These weren’t actual living blunatics. These were stuffed skins, posing for a tea party. They were all in formalwear, holding fine china or performing some type of flamboyant gesture. This was the strangest thing Robert had ever seen. This wasn’t in the movie based on Thomas Harris’s novel, it was even creepier.
The disgusted survivor walked out of the room and headed to the parlor. Rather than turning to the kitchen, he walked straight toward the front door. He wanted nothing from this place of evil and no one ever needed to witness the twisted madness that had enveloped this residence. He pulled the bandanna from his pocket, folded it, and set one corner aflame with a plastic cigarette lighter. He threw the bandanna onto an overstuffed couch in the living room and waited till it caught fire. Then he walked to his truck. This was a memory better left in ashes.
5
Going Home
EVER SINCE MAY Day, there had been frantic chatter on every channel he scanned through. Each day, surviving sections of the Armed Forces only sporadically sent transmissions. Benjamin “Benji” Collins had received no messages in days. A Naval Flight Officer, he hopped around the southernmost portion of the country rescuing any survivors smart enough to relocate to the local military bases. He had started with nearly twenty survivors in his patchwork crew, all trained military personnel. Though they had lost quite a few crew members on their journey, the men were still a fighting force to be reckoned with.
There had been absolutely no communication from any other country’s military, U.S. military bases spanning the globe, or even from the International Space Station. Was communication being intentionally blocked? Could this sickness have really overtaken every single outpost on the planet in just a few days? The Asian pilot really didn’t want to think that this AC-130 could be the last group of living humans on earth.
Benji had agreed with his copilot to fly over the respective hometowns of any crew member that lived on the way to Alabama. Only the copilot, Devin, and one other crew member risked stopping for family between NVBC and the destination of North Alabama. They found Devin’s home of Corpus Christi, Texas to be completely devoid of life. Well, at least human life. The city still stood as an almost perfect cityscape, but not even a low buzz received attention from the millions of residents that would have noticed a flyby less than a month ago. It was heartbreaking to think of the loss of all of those people. Even after a brief landing at the Naval Air Station, the team never saw or heard a sign of living humans. From Devin’s story, his childhood home had also been infested with peevies.
The only other crew member that had any reason to stop anywhere in the direction of their intended destination had a brother in Columbus, Mississippi. His brother was the chaplain at Columbus Air Force Base. After thousands of miles and not a single sign of any survivors, Azrael 2 touched down at the Air Force base there. The loss of life in Columbus turned out to be just as great as that in Corpus Christi.
Benji would be more than happy to search for the families of the rest of his crew later. He knew that any survivors’ main battle was against time. He was willing to search as long as he had fuel. Benji’s first priority was to go home.
There was no chatter from the speaker. Benji heard nothing from the dead world below him and it was depressing to fly over empty city after empty city. There were almost no burned buildings, and there were definitely no people holding up in fortified enclaves, or even the evidence of the occasional last stand. The only sound to be heard was the roar of the turbines on the plane for what seemed like millions of miles. The only reminder that the world had ended was that nearly every square inch of almost every city was sprayed with disgusting filth. Benji began seeing familiar landmarks and knew he was nearing his intended destination.
He was about to angle to Marshall County when a frantic call sounded over the radio. “Mayday, Mayday! Is anybody out there?” Benji and Devin glanced at each other, surprised to hear another human voice. After so long with no communication they didn’t think they ever would.
“Unidentified caller, this is Azrael 2. What is your location and sit rep? Over.”
This speaker was obviously an untrained civilian in a bit of a hurry. “We just need some help. We are at the Huntsville Airport and we are under attack!”
The plane rotated slightly in that direction. The servicemen listened as the man went through a quick introduction over the air.
Bruce was a local and had lived in Madison until about a month ago. He and his girlfriend Kelly, twenty-eight and twenty-six respectively, were two of the survivors that had holed up in the Huntsville International Airport. The entire airport was accessible to all seventeen civilians and six National Guardsmen. Until last week the hardest part of any of the survivors’ day had been tending their makeshift garden. They had gotten fairly complacent when a group of yokels started showing up, demanding food and water and offering nothing in return. The troops weren’t even pushing martial law. These guys just thought they deserved what the people at the airport had worked so hard for.
There were plenty of grocery stores and hospitals left stocked and unprotected. Bruce couldn’t figure out why they wanted a few fucking carrots. After Sergeant Walters forced them to leave at gunpoint, they began harassing the group intermittently.
☠☠☠
“Well, the first couple of days, then they started shooting to scare us. That quickly became shooting to injure. And now they are here to kill all of us.”
Bruce was frantic. He had no clue if any of the Guardsmen were even still alive. He just knew that the bumpkins would find the two of them eventually and probably rape Kelly before killing them both.
Benji nodded to his copilot, who returned the nod. “We are headed to your location and will be there shortly.”
With humans being on the endangered species list, how could anyone be a murderer? It was selfish, Benji decided. They sped to the airport. He would save every life he could.
☠☠☠
Larry came around the front of his 4x4 and faced the uniformed man before him. He had four boys in the back of his pickup and there was one truck similarly equipped on either side. The pistol on his hip gleamed in the sunlight.
“What all you got in there?” Larry spit a brown stream to his side.
“We only have just enough to feed ourselves. If we had extra, we’d be glad to trade.”
This motherfucker thought this was a fucking trade convention. Larry didn’t want to trade with them. Their shit was his shit and he was going to take it! He deserved what they had. It should be distributed equally. They had more than their fair share!
“I ain’t here to trade with y’all. Y’all gonna give me your stuff or I’m gonna put you down.”
The National Guardsman looked confused. “Haven’t you been to any of the Walmart’s?”
Yeah, that would be the first place you would think we would go. “Not yet. That stuff ain’t going nowhere. Y’all are growing stuff and it’s fresher.”
The soldier furrowed his brow. “But we don’t have that much. If you want to help work the gardens you’re free to share.”
Larry’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me what to do! I have rights!”
Before the soldier could ask what the hell was wrong with him, Larry pulled his
357 from the holster and put four bullets into the Guardsman’s chest.
The soldier was dead before he crumpled to the ground in a bloody heap. The leader of the marauders swung around to jump into the cab and begin the assault on the people inside.
They were going to kill all of these fucking hoarders and stick their dicks in any of the women stupid enough to still be alive. Larry really wasn’t worried about that. He had a bitch back in the single-wide that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
☠☠☠
Larry, followed by a handful of other men from his company, walked out onto the runway. The tarmac had gardens growing on either side and was conveniently bordered by a fence. This was a pretty secure set-up, if these idiots had not had to worry about human invaders. The survivors had obviously been going through the landed planes and salvaging what they could out of them. They had to be sitting on a mountain of food, and they didn’t deserve any of it. It was now all Larry’s. He would distribute things equally and maybe take a little extra off the top for himself.
He walked toward the rows of plants on his left and gestured to one of the men behind him. “Hey Tommy, go pick some—.” He turned into red vapor as a 20mm shell ripped into him from his head down. Pieces of shredded bone and bloody meat flew in all directions.
☠☠☠
“Yeah, if you see anyone outside not being pushed around in cuffs, it’s gonna be a bad guy.” Bruce wasn’t sure if any of the soldiers or his group of survivors was still alive besides him and Kelly. Anyone walking of their own power was surely an enemy.
Benji relayed a summary of the situation to the crew in back. The Marines and sailors were manning the guns and looking for any single humans.
☠☠☠
The rednecks froze, staring at the spot their boss had been in before he exploded. A few more clunks could be heard peppering the ground as asphalt was kicked up around them before everything went white.
An explosive shell landed in the middle of the four and completely annihilated every trace of their bodies. There were no bones, eviscerated organs, or spattered gore where they stood. The figures had simply vanished. The soldier mounting the cannon found it a bit humorous that this was just like Call of Duty, clean as a videogame. The AC-130 made a few more circles, destroying anyone stupid enough to walk outside to check on their friends who had disappeared.
☠☠☠
“I can still hear a few more of them. Just hang on a few more minutes.” Bruce could hear some men talking on the ground floor and was ready with his own pistol just in case.
Four of the trailer-park residents made a break for their power wagon parked just inside the parking deck. They made it to the truck and began to haul ass before chain-fed bullets started raining down. The shells exploded through the engine block like paper, not even slowed by the vehicle’s roof. The thin metal tore open like a sardine can and the people inside were blown into infinity. There was no one left drawing breath when the vehicle caught fire, so no doors swung open as the flames burned the vaporized remains of the trailer trash inside.
☠☠☠
“I think that was all of them. I’d keep an eye peeled as you come in, if I were you,” Bruce said.
The massive plane landed easily on the runway. All of the mismatched crew sleuthed out of the open bay door. Each man was fully suited-up and carrying a rifle or shotgun. They had taken out at least nine individuals and were finding no more hostiles on the ground.
They searched every room as they went through the airport. It was deserted. Bruce and Kelly were on the second floor in a broom closet, so anyone hiding anywhere else was most likely an enemy. They passed a few dead bodies, probably survivors that had lived at the airport by the looks of them.
“Bravo Charlie, this is Delta Lima. We have seen no humans alive. What is your four by four? Over.”
Benji heard Devin over his radio and raised it to reply. “Bravo Charlie here. We are experiencing the same thing and will soon be at the designated LZ. Over and out.”
As he reclipped his walkie-talkie, Benji’s team passed a hallway that featured what had been an obvious gunfight. There were an excessive amount of bullet holes lining the walls, and a couple of dead guys wearing cowboy boots and huge belt buckles were on the other end. The bodies each sported two holes in their chests and were both lying in large pools of blood. On this end of the hallway, a National Guardsman was still alive and attempting to crawl out of the hall.
The man might make it to the end of the corridor, but it was doubtful he would make it much further. He was basically covered in blood from gunshots of all different calibers. Most of the bullets must not have had much kick to them as there were very few exit wounds. He was seeping lifeblood and fading fast. Benji took a knee and held the soldier.
“Did we get them?” he asked shakily, through bloodied teeth. He could tell Benji was a friendly because of his uniform.
“We got ‘em, man. You saved a lot of people, soldier.”
The bloody soldier smiled and closed his eyes. The pilot gently lowered the dead man back to the floor and brushed himself off before signaling his team to continue moving.
☠☠☠
“Bruce? Benjamin Collins from the radio. I’m coming in!”
A sigh of relief could be heard from the other side. “Come on in!”
Benji entered cautiously to find a young dark-haired man holding a walkie-talkie at his side and a pistol at the ready. He lowered the handgun when he was sure a friendly was coming in the door.
“Thank God!” Kelly, a skinny blonde, came up to give the pilot a grateful hug. She repeatedly sobbed, “Thank you!”
☠☠☠
“All of them?”
“Looks like it. They put up a fight, though.”
The pilot continued detailing the bloody mess they had been through downstairs before saying, “Well, at least you made it.”
Bruce was having a hard time taking solace from being one of the only two survivors in the airport. It was hard to believe the people that had become his family over the past few weeks were gone.
“Unless you need something else, we need to get moving.”
☠☠☠
Benji led both teams plus the civilians downstairs and stopped in front of the bathroom at a gesture from Devin. The co-pilot stretched and said, “Hold on, I gotta drain the main vein.”
☠☠☠
Devin heard a hammer cock midstream. “Who the fuck are you?” said the voice to his back. This was playing out just like a script.
Devin grimaced as he cut the flow and slowly raised his hands. He should have expected to run into some rednecks. Just his luck. “I’m Devin Landers, a Naval flight officer. And you are?”
“I’m Bo. Where’s Larry and everybody else?” The boy wasn’t stupid. There hadn’t been any gunfire or sound at all for a considerable time. Even if his side had lost the battle, he was going to try and come out alive.
“Bo?” Benji had a cousin with a name close to that. “Well, I’m pretty sure Larry is dead and so is everybody else that you came with.” The copilot paused and gestured for Bo to wait. “I wouldn’t shoot me if I were you, I’ve got a twenty-man armed strike team just outside that door.”
The young redneck grew visibly nervous. He shakily asked, “So what do we do now?” The boy attempted to get a firmer grasp on his pistol.
Devin didn’t want to waste time with a standoff and he was worried this little shit might shoot him by accident. He wasn’t completely sure he was out of this yet. He looked to the boy’s right and gasped. The scared kid turned his head to see what was behind him and Devin quickly dropped his hand, pulled his sidearm, and double-tapped him. He hated to end another life, but there was no other way this could end. He knew that if things had played out, he would probably be the one lying on the floor.
At the sound of shots, Benji ran into the bathroom, weapon ready. “What happened?” He looked between the dead body and Devin, now facing the urinal and
finishing his original job.
“I’m okay. I’ll tell you when I get done.”
☠☠☠
The crew chuckled about the tale as they walked to the plane on the tarmac. The two newcomers followed them as Devin and Schwartz watched their six. They heard a growl and turned to see a zombie climbing the fence.
It was amazing to watch what used to be a human use each toe like a finger and grapple swiftly up and over the chain-link. Benji blinked and realized it was midmorning. “The sun’s up.” He was confused. Walkers in the daylight?
Devin scoffed as if he knew this would happen. Just his luck.
He and Schwartz each fired a stream of bullets into the oncoming monster. The peevie fell at the same time every one of the cannibals apparently figured out they could tolerate sunlight. Blue people started running out of every dark shadow outside the fence and around the airport, hurling themselves over the fence. Screams erupted from the distant tree line. The shooters began walking backwards at a fast pace, shooting in bursts at the infected.
Benji shouted at the civilians to get on the plane. Bruce and Kelly stumbled up the ramp, clutching each other in terror.
They were almost to the ramp when Schwartz tripped, falling back on his ass. Devin wanted to stop and give his friend a hand, but the monsters were coming in the hundreds. He tried to stem the tide as his friend raised and fired with one hand. “Just go!”
Devin continued backing up as the horde drew closer, gnashing teeth and animal groans growing in intensity. His fellow defender clicked empty on his rifle and he drew his pistol to kill one of the peevies mere feet from him. Devin was in the plane now and nearly everyone was shooting out at the blue monsters. Schwartz was upright and turned to make a run for the ramp. One of the zombies launched itself through the air and grabbed him, sinking its teeth into the exposed forearm of the only human still on the ground. He turned then blew its blue head off while it was in midair, gray matter and blood peppering the pavement behind it. As the cargo bay door began to rise, Schwartz jumped to ride it up.