by Wood, Rick
“What the…” Desert’s voice muttered.
Whizzo murmured some sort of agreeance.
Gus stepped forward.
“Wait!” Whizzo said, reaching out for him – but Gus raised a hand and waved it away.
He poised, just out of reach of the infected, watching its movements; disjointed and chaotic, and never standing still – but never moving quickly.
With a large, confident intake of breath, he stepped within reach. The infected could, in any sudden movement, reach out and fasten its teeth around Gus’s throat before he realised what was happening.
But it didn’t.
The god damn thing didn’t.
“I don’t believe it…” he whispered.
“This – this isn’t possible,” Whizzo said.
Gus looked over his shoulder at Desert, who said nothing.
He didn’t gloat. Just looked at her.
There was no satisfaction in winning – but satisfaction in proving to her that it could be done.
Sadie stepped forward. Sniffed the zombie. Looked back at Gus, as if to say, I don’t understand, this thing’s harmless.
“I’m going to take its restraints off,” Gus said.
“No, don’t!” Whizzo replied, backing away. “It might be tricking us!”
“The infected can’t trick us.”
“There are a lot of things we thought the infected couldn’t do,” Desert pointed out.
“Fine,” Gus said. He took out his gun. “Happy?”
Desert withdrew hers too.
“Do it,” she said.
Whizzo looked helplessly around himself, as if searching for a weapon, knowing he wouldn’t be able to use one if he had it.
Sadie readied her hands – those gentle hands that could remove an infected’s head as easy as poking the head off a sunflower
Warily, Gus reached for the cable tied around the drainpipe. He leant forward, his throat before its teeth, cut through it, and the thing was released.
They all stood back.
It stumbled forward, falling, then pushing itself up. Finding that it only had one leg, it pushed itself to its knee and dragged itself forward.
At first, Desert thought it was dragging itself toward her, and she aimed her gun – but with Gus’s fervent shake of the hand, she realised it was aiming for the stairs behind her.
She moved out of the way and it pulled itself up one step, then up another, until it was all the way to the top of the basement and dragging itself through the corridor.
They looked at each other and burst up the steps that sunk from the pressure of their running.
They followed it through the corridor. Its stale blood had dried and it left no puddle as it crawled to the front door.
“How is this even possible?” asked Desert.
“Reading. Music. All of it, it… it worked,” Gus said, hardly able to believe he was saying it.
Gus opened the front door and let it out.
“Should we let it go?” Whizzo asked.
“Why?” Gus replied.
“I mean, we know it’s not hurt us, but it’s still the infected. We don’t know how long this could last, or whether it’s just us. It could harm someone else.”
Gus watched thoughtfully as the infected dragged its heavy, one-legged body through a broken fence and across the overgrown grass of a nearby field.
“Look at it,” he said, gesticulating with his hand toward its condition. “That ain’t harming anyone.”
And he shut the door, leaving the lone zombie to find its way into the world.
19 HOURS
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“We still need a plan,” said Desert, getting straight to the point.
“You’re right,” Gus said, smiling at the surprised look on Whizzo’s face, who looked like he’d been expecting another fight. “There’s two things we need to figure out. One of them is more important, I get that, but we need to cover both.”
“Fine,” Desert said.
“One, what to do with Donny? Two, what to do with the army? I’m all ears.”
“Well,” Whizzo said, “you could just tie Donny up and sing him songs and read him books.”
Gus was sure that wasn’t meant as patronising as it sounded.
“We don’t have time,” Gus said. “Nor do we have the ability to capture and restrain someone like Donny. We need something we could do there, in the fight, something I could say or do that… I don’t know. Gets through to him.”
“What you said about Doctor Janine Stanton seemed to get to him,” Whizzo pointed out. “What about her?”
“Nah, it stopped him temporarily, it didn’t stop him altogether. We need something bigger.”
“You suggested he killed Stanton,” Desert pointed out. “What about his guilt?”
Gus slammed his fist against the side. Jabbed his finger into the air. Looked to the others with eyes so wide and determined it looked like his brain may burst from his skull.
“I have it!” he declared, then paused, biting his lip, his face chewing as he mulled his idea over.
“Well…?” Whizzo said.
“I’m going to let him kill me.”
Silence.
Long, uncomfortable, confused silence.
Desert and Whizzo glanced at each other, confirming with their eyes that they both heard correctly.
Whizzo went to speak, but even though his mouth opened no words were uttered.
Desert then tried, but failed.
Gus looked between them, awaiting a response, with everyone unsure what response to give.
“There’s one slight problem,” Whizzo eventually spoke.
“What?”
“Er… If you do that, won’t you be, kind of, I don’t know… dead?”
Gus shook his head adamantly.
“No, no! See, Donny won’t actually kill me.”
“He won’t?”
“No, he’ll go to, and he’ll get pretty close – but the guilt, it will, I don’t know… stop him.”
“How can you be sure?” Desert said, looking as sceptical as she ever had.
“Well, I can’t, can I? But I’m pretty certain.”
“He nearly killed me.”
“Yes, but you’re not me, are you?”
Desert paused, as if there would be more explanation than that – when there wasn’t, she added, “I don’t follow.”
“Donny cares for me.”
“Cared,” Desert pointed out. “Past tense.”
“No, he does. I know. We saved each other’s lives. You don’t do that and not feel some kind of bond.”
“I really don’t…” Desert stopped herself, considered it, then waved her hands in the air. “Fine, whatever.”
“I know you don’t think it will work.”
“I don’t.” Desert shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I think it’s the most stupid idea you have ever had. And you’ve had some doozies.”
“Guys,” Whizzo said. “It doesn’t matter. It still leaves us nowhere with the army.”
Another silence descended. He was right.
Gus sat, leaning his head on his hand, chewing his finger.
Desert licked her lips, huffed, deeply contemplating.
Whizzo looked between them.
“Right, what do we know about them?” Gus mused. “There has to be a weakness, we just have to find it. What do we know?”
“Well,” Whizzo responded, “they almost killed us, look superior in every way, chased us, nearly got us until–”
“That’s it!”
Gus leapt up.
“What? Them nearly getting us?”
“Exactly!”
Whizzo shook his head, confused.
“Why did they only nearly get us?” Gus prompted.
“Because we got away.”
“How?”
“We made it to the lake, and they–”
Whizzo stopped. Sudden knowledge illuminated the room. Desert stood. Whi
zzo stood. Gus bounced from foot to foot, giddy.
“They can’t handle water,” Whizzo said. “They can’t swim!”
“Exactly!”
“So, what do we do?” Desert said. “Just take them to the lake again and push them in? We still need an idea.”
Gus nodded.
They were so close.
They had the answer to one question, they just needed the answer to another.
He paced from one side of the room to the other.
They had it, he knew it, the solution was there, right in front of them, he just had to find it.
Then he did.
“I got it!” Gus said, looking excitedly to Whizzo.
“What?” Whizzo said. “Why are you looking at me?”
“You know how you think you’re useless?” Gus said, walking toward him and placing a proud hand on Whizzo’s shoulder. “You know how you think that we’re the muscle? That we’re the ones who carry you?”
“Uh huh…”
“My friend, you have just proven yourself wrong.”
Whizzo shared a confused look with Desert.
“What?” he asked.
“That water bomb you were creating a few days ago – remember it?”
“Yeah, the one that could take water vapour and expand it and…”
Whizzo grinned.
“How long would it take you to create enough?”
“Jeeze, I don’t know… Days?”
“What if you didn’t have days? What if you worked on it solidly for, I don’t know, a few hours? How long would it take?”
“I guess… Twelve, fourteen hours maybe.”
Gus smiled warmly. “Then that would give us a few more hours to take the fight to them. Wouldn’t it?”
“How would we even transport them?”
“We have hours, I can go find a trolley or something.”
“But how can we be sure it would kill them?” Desert asked. “They only die from a shot to the head. How can there be any guarantee?”
“We’re not really working on any guarantees here,” Gus pointed out.
“But I still need more than a probably.”
A few moments of thought went by.
“Just hypothesising,” Whizzo said, “but there is no supernatural aspect to these zombies, they aren’t magic – they are just infected. Yet it takes a shot to the head to kill them. So how does this infection protect them from shots to the body?”
Blank looks returned his eager stare.
“The infection must spread to their body, to their skin, thickening it somehow, making it harder to penetrate. This doesn’t mean that they can’t die from their insides being hurt, it means to get to them you’d have to go to the head, or go inside of them… For example, flooding their bodies with water.”
“You are a bloody genius!” Gus exclaimed.
Whizzo beamed back at him.
“Okay,” said Gus. “Let’s do this. We’re ready!”
Whizzo’s smile faded, his initial excitement ended, and he grew jittery. Suddenly it all became so real.
“That’s a lot of pressure, I don’t know if I can–”
“You can.”
Gus had never been so sure.
They had the plan. That was the simple part.
Now they had to execute it.
2 HOURS
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The same hollow steps paraded down the hallway – but somehow, they seemed hollower and heavier.
Donny winced, knowing what was coming.
Every time those steps approached, every time the same chaotic bounce began from afar and drew gravely near, he knew.
The door swung open and the same silhouette appeared in the doorway.
The same, but different.
Bigger, somehow. Stockier. More confident. Not the shuffling wreck, but the striding monster.
“Donny,” said Eugene, the same voice but grander.
Donny backed up against the padded wall of his cell. Flinched in preparation, staring in readiness.
“Oh, Donny,” said Eugene.
Donny?
That was him.
He knew that.
At least, it used to be.
Who was he now?
What am I now?
“You have served me so well,” continued Eugene. “So, so well. And I will be forever grateful. Honestly, I will – you were quite the creation.”
Eugene paced forward and crouched before Donny. Donny tried to move, but a chain around his ankle restricted his movement.
“I mean that,” Eugene continued, as patronising as ever, his eyes with a sinister glint more powerful than Donny could understand. “But I do not need you any longer.”
Eugene took a deep, satisfactory breath and flexed his muscles.
“Look at me,” he said. “Just look at me. I know I’m the same face, the same words – but I am not the same man. And you can see that. Can’t you?”
Donny didn’t answer.
“Can’t you?” Eugene grabbed Donny’s hair and pulled his head back. This exposed Donny’s throat and Eugene looked at it the way a hungry man would look at cake.
Donny was used to being tormented, but he feared Eugene more in this moment than ever before.
He frantically nodded.
“This means I don’t need you to defend me any longer,” Eugene persisted. “In fact, I don’t need anyone to defend me at all. Not only do I have an army to fight my fights for me, but now…”
Eugene stood. He lifted Donny by the throat, choking him, his feet dangling helplessly.
“Now look at this! Look at it! Look at what I’m doing to you! It’s ridiculous! How am I even doing this?”
He cackled, looking around as if someone was going to agree with him.
“I only wish these walls weren’t padded so they didn’t cushion your fall.”
He threw Donny across the room. Donny winced as Eugene grabbed hold of the chain attached to his ankle, yanked it out the floor and pulled Donny toward him. Donny slid aimlessly toward his captor, and looked upwards, cowering.
Eugene wrapped the chain twice around Donny’s throat. He dragged Donny across the room, Donny clutching at the metal choking him.
“Stop grabbing at it!” Eugene commanded, and Donny obeyed.
Eugene placed a foot on Donny’s chest and pulled on the chain.
Donny gasped and choked and suffocated but he did nothing to stop it – he was told not to, and he would always obey.
I must always obey.
Eugene’s lecherous grin spread even wider as he pulled and yanked, gaining a sense of sinister satisfaction in watching Donny suffer.
Donny’s eyelids began to droop.
His body began to fall.
And a faint voice from outside called his name.
He listened. What was that?
It was a voice he knew, but who was it?
“Eugene!”
It couldn’t be.
“Eugene Squire, come out and face me you piece of shit!”
“By George,” Eugene whispered to Donny. “It’s Gus Harvey, come to die.”
Eugene didn’t need to reveal anything yet. He could sit back and enjoy two old friends in a David vs Goliath fight to the end.
He loosened the chain and let Donny’s throat open back up, and Donny wheezed on oxygen.
A gunshot.
“That’s six of your men now!”
Eugene unwrapped the chain from Donny’s throat.
“Get up, Donny,” he instructed. Despite the desperate pain, Donny obeyed.
“Eugene Squire, come out!”
Eugene squeezed Donny’s chin.
Why?
Because he could.
“Now kill, boy,” he instructed. “Kill.”
Chapter Forty
The guards hadn’t been difficult to dispose of. There were two waiting outside the nearest entrance and Gus had shot both as he approached.
Two more men came to greet
him as he entered the building. He shot one as Sadie ran up, rolling to dodge a bullet and tripping the other. Once the guard had been tripped, Sadie dove upon him and landed her fist upon his oesophagus. She withdrew her knife and planted it into the man’s throat.
“When did you learn to use knives?” Gus inquired.
Sadie smiled and shrugged.
“You do surprise me,” Gus said. “That’s still three one to me, though.”
Sadie smiled a sneaky smile and ran on ahead, where two more guards were approaching. She stuck her knife into the gut of one, and span beneath the trigger of the other before sticking the knife into their throat.
She looked to Gus and smirked.
“Fine, three all,” he admitted.
They charged through the corridor, Gus’s gun raised, Sadie’s knife ready.
“Eugene Squire!” Gus called out. “Eugene Squire, get out here you coward!”
They turned another corner and Gus instinctively shot a man point blank in the head, and Sadie disposed of another.
“Four,” she said, grinning at Gus.
“Fine, but it’s still a draw,” Gus said.
They continued up a set of stairs and, before Gus could shoot the oncoming guard, Sadie had sprinted forward and sliced open his chest.
“Not fair!” Gus claimed, playfully. “I had my gun ready!”
Sadie giggled and ran ahead.
“Eugene!” Gus continued shouting.
Sadie dispatched another, and Gus regretted making this a competition.
“Eugene Squire, come out and face me you piece of shit!”
He shot another guard in the head.
“That’s six of your men now!”
Sadie looked back at him.
“Yeah, and you have eight, whatever,” he whispered.
He marched further down the hall. It was eerily silent. The corridors were a clinical white; sterile, and depressingly so. He could smell cleaning products in every turn, and he imagined that was to get rid of the potent smell of death that arose from the army’s chambers.
“Eugene Squire, come out!” he shouted, and turned another corner.
A few footsteps prompted him to turn suddenly, alert and ready.
A shadow announced itself on the far wall, along with the face of a familiar friend.