by Jack Lothian
That confirmed my suspicions. Cassy must have been no older than sixteen, but of course, she had aged in the days since the outbreak. The dirt and grime did nothing to compliment her and while I expected she had no doubt been a teenage heartbreaker, right now she looked weathered and tired.
“Why should I help you?” It sounded harsher than I intended and she looked wounded.
“I can’t make it on my own, and my dad owned a boat in there. If it’s still there, I know where the keys are and how to sail it.”
I knew that would be more useful than blindly trying to locate a vessel to board. The young girl was right, I had never been on a rowboat never mind trying to sail a ship, no matter how modest-sized the boat I managed to get hold of.
“I’m quite capable of sailing myself, thank you.” I tried to sound confident, but her raised eyebrow told me she didn’t believe me.
“You don’t look like a sailor.” She was right on the money.
Time was wasting.
This was survival, albeit not how I had planned but I didn’t have the luxury of turning away now.
Something in me told me she knew that.
“We haven’t got much time,” she pleaded.
She was right, the sound of shuffling feet on tarmac suddenly carried in the air.
Only it wasn’t coming from the courtyard, it was coming from the road behind us instead.
We were trapped.
CHAPTER THREE
Taking The Chance
I pushed her hard against the wall and held her there. Raising a finger to my dry lips, she took the hint and pressed herself hard against the stone.
I knew where the six of them were in the courtyard, I didn’t need to check them again.
My biggest concern was the shuffling sound from the other end of the building.
I moved as silently as I could, walking on my tiptoes back along the wall from where I had come. When I reached the far end of the building, I could see the source of the noise.
This one was a grisly sight. I couldn’t tell if it had once been a man or woman. The body was burned beyond recognition. As it limped across the tarmac, smoke still billowed from its charred flesh. Whatever it was dragged its left leg awkwardly behind it which had been the source of the noise.
White lidless eyes darted around frantically as it staggered and limped toward us.
We had no time, we had to move.
Staying in the shadows, I quickly moved back to Cassy who had not moved from where I left her.
“There’s one coming from that way, I don’t know if there are more, but we need to move.”
She didn’t protest, just nodded.
“Have you got any weapons?” I asked as I reaffirmed my grip on the knife in my hand.
“I have these,” she whispered and withdrew a pair of battered kitchen knives from her bag.
“That’ll do,” and for the first time in days I cracked a smile.
It was time to move.
Little did I know that I was right then walking myself toward my own demise.
I moved first, and Cassy followed. We stayed low as we rounded behind the half-dozen gathered around the crate. I could hear them mumbling, I could almost make out words caused by the random electrical impulses in their dead brains.
The smell became almost unbearable as we moved silently closer to the group that was between us and the perimeter fence of the marina.
I dodged behind a battered car that sat to the side of the nearest zombie. Peering through the dirty glass of the windows, I watched the closest one as it shuffled around as if assessing the contents of the crate.
Suddenly, it stopped.
I saw its body tense and its demeanor changed. Whereas it had seemed relaxed, dead arms swinging lifelessly by its side, it now tensed. The undead woman slowly raised her head upward and in the silence of the night, I could hear her.
She was sniffing the air.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she seemed to taste the air. A swollen and blood-stained tongue poked out from between her torn lips as if tasting something. Slowly her head moved from side to side until finally, something caught her attention.
She rounded in an instant.
Her body lowered, and she looked ready to strike.
Her gaze settled and it was fixed squarely on the car behind which Cassy and I had hidden.
“Stay down,” I hissed and pushed Cassy down. “They know.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the undead woman leapt onto the roof of the car, shattering the windows with the impact. Glass rained down on us, and Cassy squealed uncontrollably.
That was all the others needed.
All six pairs of undead eyes were now focussed in our direction, and they moved like a pack of hunting wolves. Scrambling back away from the car, I pulled the young girl close to me as we moved.
The woman atop the car was growling like an angry bear. Her torn lips had formed into a snarl and blood mixed with spit dribbled from her chin.
She clattered her teeth together, almost musically as she stared across at me and I felt my heart sink.
Off to the right, the exposed rib man was moving around to flank us. To the left, two more equally as gruesome creatures stalked expertly.
They were preparing to attack, and we were cornered.
We had to act.
I had an idea, it was desperate, but it was all I had.
“Follow me,” I barked and made my move.
CHAPTER FOUR
It Happens
I threw my weight against the car. I’m no strongman, but it was enough to rock the car. Caught completely by surprise, the woman perched atop the roof tumbled roughly to the ground beside me.
Landing roughly on her back, she immediately started lashing her arms around and biting wildly at my ankles.
At one point I felt her flimsy fingers grasp at the hem of my tattered trousers, but I pulled myself away out of her reach. Cassy was on her in an instant.
The young woman’s attack caught me completely by surprise.
I hadn’t expected her to be a survivor. She had come across so innocent and lost but now she was like a girl possessed. As the undead woman gnashed her teeth and reached out toward me, Cassy slid across the road and expertly buried her knife into the woman.
With two swift strikes, one from each of her kitchen knives, the undead woman finally died. It was not a glorious death, but something told me she had finally found release from her tortured afterlife.
Staring across at me over the dead woman, I saw a madness in Cassy’s eyes and knew I, too, had to act.
I rounded around the car without a backward glance and was met by the rib man. He threw his arms out toward me but now I was ready.
I was in the mode of survival at all costs and thrust my knife out toward his head.
The first attack missed, but I was quick to replace it with a more precise attack and very soon the man lay dead at my feet.
A massive blow struck my back and threw me to the floor.
I landed roughly and felt the bite of rough tarmac against my face and arms. The knife tumbled from my grip, and my pistol slid from the holster and across the floor away from me.
I was unarmed.
I was exposed, and I was vulnerable.
Gasping for air from my winded lungs, I rolled away from whatever had knocked me to the ground and fumbled blindly for my blade. Finally, my fingers wrapped around the handle, and I turned onto my back to prepare for another attack.
There was nothing there.
Instead, the remaining four of them were closing down on Cassy who now held my pistol in her trembling hands.
I knew what she was planning, but it was the wrong choice.
“No!” I yelled above the groans and chattering of the creatures.
She either didn’t hear me or didn’t listen as she ripped the trigger backward.
The gunshot echoed around the open courtyard, and although one of the zombies fel
l lifeless to the floor, I knew we were done.
I wasted no time and threw my body against the nearest of the remaining three sending its battered body sprawling to the floor. There was no time to despatch any of them. Instead, my priority was to knock them aside and make a dash for escape.
With all three kicked or thrown to the floor with brute force, I reached out and grasped the young girl’s arm, dragging her with me.
“What were you thinking?” I snapped angrily as I pulled her into a sprint toward the marina fence. “You never shoot unless you have to, the sound will bring them all.”
I didn’t hear her reply clearly, but in my head all I heard her say was “I know,” but right then that made no sense.
As we neared the chain-link fence, the first of the fallen zombies righted themselves and sprinted toward us.
We were desperate now and so close to sanctuary.
My fingers wrapped through the cold metal fence, and I began to pull myself up and over. The fencing wobbled dangerously loose against the supports but held against my weight. I was up and felt the bite and sting of barbed wire as I struggled to the ragged top.
“Help me!” Cassy screamed from below with her arms stretching up toward me desperately.
Reaching down, I grabbed her wrists and began to pull her up. I felt the jagged barbed wire dig into the flesh of my thighs but fought against the pain.
“Climb,” I growled through gritted teeth as she scrambled up.
With both of us precariously teetering on the top of the fence, we were both rocked as the first of the creatures slammed itself into the fence below.
And then it happened.
It wasn’t what I expected. My death wasn’t caused by the jagged teeth of the snarling undead.
It resulted from the gun that was now rested against my chest, held by the no longer trembling hands of the young girl I had helped.
“Why?” I asked as she stared emotionlessly at me balanced atop the chain-link fence.
“Survival,” she replied coldly.
The second gunshot of the night echoed through the air and I felt the bullet tear into me.
CHAPTER FIVE
I Am What I Am
The gunshot killed me, of that I am sure.
I felt the searing pain, I think I could even smell the burning skin around the wound. As I drooped, half hanging from the top of the fence, my body went limp. My upper body hung over the marina side while my legs dangled lifelessly over the courtyard side from where we had come.
As my vision began to fade to black, I saw my killer drop from the fence and walk away toward the rows of bobbing boats.
As my vision faded, as death took me, I felt something else.
I was so close to death that I had accepted it.
Now, though, there was a new feeling. Now I know it was the zombie sinking his teeth into my calf, biting through flesh and muscle with animalistic ease. No sooner had the teeth buried themselves into my flesh than I felt a new pain.
The gunshot was no longer a concern, it didn’t even feel like it had hurt in comparison to this.
Whatever makes you a monster burns like fire.
I felt it start on my leg and as I felt my heart take its last few beats, the fire coursed through my body like a demon. Finally, with the last pound of my failing heart, my head exploded, and my vision went.
For an instant, I thought I was done. I figured I had finally been offered the peace of death, but I was wrong.
No sooner had my sight faded than it came back.
Instead of colors and images, I recognized I was now looking through new eyes.
My world was different, painted in hues of red and grey and in the distance, I could see something.
It took a second to realize what it was but it was her.
Across the marina, with my monstrous new eyes, I could see her heart pounding furiously in her chest.
I wanted it.
In mere seconds I had gone from man to beast, and it excited me.
What had repulsed me since they had first plagued our world was now strangely welcoming and serene.
Who was I to argue when the impulse was so strong?
I could see her there in the darkness, I could almost taste her even from this distance.
I was not only fueled by an insatiable thirst, a zombie thirst, but what was left of my human side wanted something else.
It wanted revenge.
Who was I to argue?
I had survived this long, and now I was what I had so desperately tried to evade.
And do you know what? It wasn’t all that bad.
Ripping myself from the fence, I felt no new pain. All that consumed me was the warm heat that now filled my veins. My body was inconsequential, it was just a means to an end. My thirst, however, that was insatiable. I needed to satisfy it, and I could see a way to do that with her.
I fell roughly to the floor. I’m confident I left part of me atop the fence, but it mattered not.
My surroundings were mere outlines, I could make out the shapes of buildings and boats, but they were hazed. My focus was on the strange glow that I knew was Cassy. Her heart shone like a calling beacon ahead of me, and I could do nothing but surge toward it.
I didn’t want anything else except to reach that beacon.
I heard my feet stomping against the wooden dock but above that I could hear her breathing.
She did this to me.
She made me this monster, and I was certain to return the favor.
I found her cowering behind the hull of a bobbing boat. She let off a few rounds, and I think one even hit me. It was inconsequential, though, as I felt her clothes beneath my fingers at last.
My vision was filled with the glowing red of her beating heart.
Before I brought her into my new world, I took the time to savor the fear. The fear sent her red heart burning like the sun and finally as I sank my teeth into her, the light faded and she joined me.
Had she chosen a different path perhaps our fate would have been different.
At last, I released her and turned to look at the blazing moon in the sky high above.
In my fevered brain, I spoke while outwardly all I did was groan and grumble.
My world was no longer one of survival and life. Instead, it was now one of satisfying my insatiable need to feed.
Who was I to argue with this?
Not long ago, I had been one of the minority. One of those fighting against the inevitable end that faces us all. I realize that now. Why shy from what will always come to be?
In time, perhaps you will understand this, the fight for survival is insignificant when we will all, ultimately, face this fate.
In fact, as I watch you now through the window, see the glow of your beating heart, I know.
I know that very soon you will be with me, in this new world.
Nothing will taste or be the same again.
Knock...knock.
The Rip
Jeremy Megargee
Before the media fell, the talking heads called it The Rip. It happened across multiple nations on Rip Day, a day now as infamous in US history as Columbine or 9/11. The Rip created chasms throughout the states, ragged doorways to another place, and the sound of them opening was like a wet envelope being torn asunder by failing geriatric teeth.
Men of science argued about The Rip on CNN and Fox News, trying in vain to explain the unexplainable. Various theories surfaced, but the most popular was that what we perceive as reality wore thin in certain areas. No one could agree if it was an inevitable accident or if it was intentional from the other side. But a large portion of the experts agreed that these chasms opened into an alternate dimension, an uncharted void both alien and incomprehensible to human beings.
The doorways appeared the same everywhere. They looked like some great hand took a crude knife and carved a slit into thin air at ground level. A translucent membrane covered each entrance, and there was nothing to be seen past the mem
brane but immense blackness and rain that seemed to pound everlasting. Each site quickly swarmed with military personnel, the government stretching themselves to the last man and woman in order to post quarantine compounds at all the known Rip slits.
It was human curiosity that damned them all. A single field biologist with a utility knife at a doorway in Pineworth, West Virginia. This man approached the membrane with the misguided idea of obtaining a biopsy, thinking the veil might be something akin to living tissue.
It sliced as smooth as paper, and as the membrane retracted, they came pouring through from the wet void. It started a domino effect across all corners of the continent. Membranes began to split on their own, and the swarm washed over those military camps with merciless antipathy.
Gun fighting, explosions, and all manner of human ingenuity sought to repel them. The resistance lasted a grand total of one week before civilization staggered to its knees due to what poured from The Rip slits.
The lights were blotted out, and electricity died with a gasping fizzle. Airplanes fell from the sky and subway trains smashed into each other in the depths of the earth. The population was culled in such a systematic ravaging that billions soon became mere hundreds. The world was prepared for global warming, nuclear war, and even widespread famine.
But the world was not ready for The Rip. Even in the wildest of imaginations, no one could fathom those wet and waiting things—things not built for our fleshy state of being. The corruption seeped from the slits like weeping wounds across Mother Nature’s mutilated face, and all was lost in the blink of disbelieving human eyes.
They tried one last time to close the doors. One massive last stand for the human race, a march to triumph or doom.
The hopes of an entire sentient species rested on the shoulders of those brave few that fought to the bitterest end. Hope died with them. All they found was doom. And in their final moments came the realization that doors that open into dripping black spaces can never be closed again.
* * *
Raymond holds the 12-gauge pump action shotgun in the crook of his elbow as he stomps through the dim confines of his derelict kingdom. The slot machines are just dead monoliths now, and all the former gambling worshipers have gone to little piles of mucus-covered dust. The casino is an eerie place without the lights and sounds to give it life, but it’s served him well as a fortress of solitude after the events of The Rip.