LZR-1143: Evolution

by Bryan James

  I shivered briefly, my hand shaking as the body fell like a sack of wet hammers, and I simply stared at it as the cursing from below stopped with another excited scream, and the Humvee jerked forward.

  There’s no way I should have been able to decapitate that corpse with my hand. It wasn’t rotted; there were still muscles and sinews attached—the body was almost the same consistency and strength as a living human.

  I stared at my hand, flexing my thumb and forefinger and trying to figure out how and why I had been able to take the head off of a human body with my bare hands, but soon, as the darkness foiled my curiosity and as we plowed through individual corpses passing under the wing of the C-5, my mind snapped back to the here and now.

  “Where to now?” I heard Kate yell from the driver’s seat below.

  We were weaving somewhat erratically as we passed the nose of the plane. The dead were becoming more sporadic and inconstant, most of them having been part of the horde that was now fading behind us. They were following, but at too slow a speed to be of significant concern.

  A man in a green flight suit wandered in front of the Humvee suddenly, as Kate sped up in anticipation of more open roads ahead. A large, ragged chunk of flesh hung from his cheek and one eye dangled loosely from a mangled socket. His remaining eye flashed to my face briefly before the corner of the Humvee sent him careening to the ground.

  Something about his presence and his countenance irrationally enraged me, and I sent the last of the large rounds from my machine gun into his mangled body. The corpse bounced against the pavement as the bullets ripped through the flesh and bone, but none of the shots hit the head. As we sped past, I turned around, watching as his arms pushed against the ground, causing the damaged torso to separate at waist level, entrails smearing against the dark concrete as he levered himself forward, now legless. I shuddered, and retreated into the relative calm and safety of the Humvee’s interior, making sure to firmly close the hatch on the top.

  I stumbled as I sat heavily in the passenger’s seat, speaking loudly to Kate to be heard over the roar of the engine.

  “Find the gates yet?”

  She nodded, hands working the controls and eyes locked forward.

  “Yeah, right in front here. They’re toasted, look.”

  A guard booth stood between two lanes in the road, chain link fence topped with barbed wire extending off to either side of the openings. The barriers were down, but totally shattered. A troop transport truck lay on its side, nearly blocking one lane entirely. Badly burned bodies—too badly burned to reanimate—lay sprawled near the back of the truck. Bullet holes speckled the white concrete of the guard booth and dark stains inside the structure screamed of past violence.

  “Must have been overrun quickly. I can’t imagine how many of those things they had to try to repel. Had to have been a damn stampede to have done this type of damage to the barriers.”

  “Well, if our friends back there are any indication, they’re starting to mass up in groups, just like the Captain said.”

  She shook her head, even as she turned the Humvee sharply to the right avoiding a burning car and piece of unidentifiable wreckage.

  I simply grunted as I peered through the windshield into the windy, wet night. We had finally made it onto Route 1, the main arterial road running north-south through the state of Delaware; it was also the road that fed into the base. Cars lined the roadway sporadically, but there was very little debris or damaged vehicles so close to the military installation. Anyone that got this far probably just pushed a little to get inside the base, leaving the road nearby somewhat clear.

  “We should get some distance and then find a safe place to stop for the night,” I said, putting my hand on Kate’s shoulder. She was tense, and I could feel her knotted muscles, even underneath the thick fabric of her borrowed uniform.

  “Yeah, I know.” She raised her hand to her eye and wiped the nervous sweat from her brow. “We’re moving south, I think it’s away from the city, or what passes for a city in this area. I remember it being fairly deserted a few miles south of the base. If we can pull into a rest area or something, we can have quick access to the road if we need it, but stay out of an easy line of sight.”

  She squirmed slightly in her seat, looking at me quickly and then back to the road.

  “Plus, I could really use a pee break.”

  I smiled, and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before sliding to the back of the cabin to root around. There were medical packs secured to the back of the compartment, but I ignored them. I was looking for food, water and ammunition. Besides, I thought, flexing my shoulder, which had apparently healed since the debris sliced it open on the tarmac, Kate and I weren’t really in the medicine-needing business lately.

  We were on the road for nearly forty minutes as I searched in vain for food or water, and while Kate drove, white-knuckled, through the wind and the darkness of the abandoned Delaware road. I watched out the window, staring at the pockets of civilization surrounded by farm land, fast food restaurants, and coffee vendors. I also took the time to think on the developments of the last few hours.

  The vaccine, in its purest form, was lost and presumed to be destroyed. Hartliss was dead. We had no way to get to D.C. by air. We had no food, no water, and no idea how to get to where we needed to be: D.C., the only place we knew there to be a large vestige of surviving people and a chance at killing this disease. To top it all off, not only were we healing inordinately fast, but I appeared to have gained some sort of augmented strength, if my performance in the weight room in the Enterprise and on the roof of the Humvee were any indication.

  As I focused on the last development, I decided to try out this latest skill. I opened a tool kit that I found underneath one of the seats in the cabin and removed a screwdriver with a foot-long dowel. They used these in large machines to access inaccessible fasteners through crowded machinery.

  But I was going to use it as a test of strength.

  I carefully grabbed the handle in one hand and the metal dowel in the other and tried to bend the one quarter inch thick steel bar. My arms tensed and my muscles flexed.

  Nothing.

  Nada.

  I tried harder, willing the metal to bend to my wishes. My hands burned and my arms shook.

  Nothing.

  Crap. I felt really stupid.

  In the back of my mind, I noticed that we had stopped moving, but I focused on the task at had, staring at the metal and ignoring the biting pain in my left hand as the steel pressed into my palm.

  Just bend, damn it!

  I realized that I wasn’t alone, and raised my head to see Kate staring at me like I was insane. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail, with small strands of hair escaping the style, stuck to her forehead, which was wet with perspiration.

  But I was pretty sure that I was the one that looked funny.

  Her eyes were curious and her brow furrowed.

  “What did the screwdriver do to you, Michael?” she asked quietly, in a mock concerned tone of voice.

  “I ... never mind. It’s not important.” I felt foolish, thinking that I had some sort of superhuman strength. It must have been an adrenalin rush—after all, in both cases it was kill or be killed.

  That must have been it.

  I shrugged internally, and looked around.

  “Are we at a stopping point?” I asked.

  Behind me, she asked instead of answering, “Did you see ... Is there any hope that he survived?”

  She was referring to Hartliss.

  I sighed heavily, shaking my head.

  “I can’t see how. Those choppers went up in flames. There was a lot of fuel involved in those fires, Kate. I wish ... But I don’t think so.”

  I paused, remembering her words from earlier in the night.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She simply nodded and stared out the door for several minutes, silently taking it in. I looked outside and recognized the oddly normal surroundings o
f a rest stop off the highway. The brown brick walls, the green metal roof, and the glass enclosure on the wall facing the parking lot, with a map of the highway and various flyers enclosed within.

  Suddenly, she spoke, her voice light and falsely cheery as I knew she was still digesting the death of our friend.

  “So, I don’t know about you, but I really need to take a leak.”

  I chuckled and turned around. Those things didn’t see very well in the dark, and we could use the chance to re-provision if there were any hapless, vulnerable vending machines roaming the area. Plus, we could use some fresh air before buttoning up for the night.

  “Ordinarily I’d say we jump outside, go on the pavement and come back in, but there may be some food left in the vending machines, and we could really use some water. For now, it looks clear out there, let’s go at the same time, and we can cover each other.”

  “Sounds good. But if there’s no toilet paper, you better believe I’m asking you to find some for me.”

  “Deal,” I said, smiling and grabbing the handle of the heavy door, releasing the armored hatch and letting in the cool, windy night air.

  Chapter 16

  There were three cars parked in the lot with us. The Humvee sat in the middle of the road; Kate wanted to keep the vehicle ready to leave rather than park in a designated spot; besides, it just felt stupid to park in a normal spot, all things considered.

  Two of the three cars had the doors shut and the windows were still in place. The third stood vacant and abandoned with the driver and passenger side doors open and exposed. Broken glass from the driver’s side back seat window littered the ground beneath the car, indicating that the attack had come while the car was parked.

  Keeping our rifles raised at shoulder level, we moved slowly up the cement walkway. The wind raced through the trees, and a constant shuffling noise of leaves and branches above our heads was loud in the night air. No lights illuminated the building, and the lawn outside was dark. We moved deliberately but carefully, but saw nothing unusual outside.

  I was concerned, since the Humvee was about as quiet as a pair of mating alley cats stuck in a dryer, but it appeared that most of the creatures in the area had moved on to tastier man-flesh pastures, or they hadn’t caught up to us just yet.

  Either way suited me just fine, thank you.

  We reached the large, open space between the women’s and men’s bathrooms, and Kate nodded her head to one side. I followed, shouldering my rifle and drawing my pistol from my belt. I just didn’t trust myself with a rifle in a tight space; I’d rather have my arms and hands free in case we had close-quarters company.

  We moved toward the door to the women’s restroom.

  The door was shut, but it wasn’t locked. Kate poked at it softly with her foot, as I stood back, glancing behind us every second for movement or unusual noise. It was a hard job, considering the wind lashing against the walls and the rain coming in infrequent pelts against the metal roof.

  The door swung slowly inward as Kate pressed it further with her foot. I inched closer to the relative safety of the restroom, eager to abandon the open, exposed area outside.

  The room inside was dark, but a small bit of light made it through the narrow horizontal windows set high in the walls. Despite the storm outside, a small amount of moonlight filtered through the clouds and helped provide a meager portion of lighting for the otherwise pitch black room.

  Kate stepped one foot inside, cautiously.

  Then another.

  I followed, catching the closing door with my foot and backing in to the room behind her. As she made it into the dark, tile room, her footsteps echoed slightly and I quickly let the door shut behind us, anxious about the sound of our footfalls giving us away to anyone or anything that was still around.

  “Looks okay ...” she started to whisper, but then suddenly grunted.

  A body was falling forward from a janitor’s closet to the right of the doorway. It had been hidden behind a corner in the wall, and the door had come open suddenly as she spoke, the edge slamming into her forehead.

  It was the large, fetid corpse of a woman, with lacerations on both wrists. Blood covered the arms and thighs of the creature, evidence of a self-inflicted death.

  The head lashed forward toward Kate as she struggled to raise her rifle. Her arms flew up, abandoning the gun as she pushed the thing backward as hard as she could. I raised my pistol but cursed, knowing that I couldn’t risk a shot until it had distance from her, and they were both turned away, with Kate’s body blocking my path. I moved forward to drag the thing away, but stumbled as Kate fell backward.

  Her push had driven the zombie back nearly ten feet, slamming the body into the wall of the toilet stall and crumpling the aluminum side inward. The thing staggered once, and then focused again, coming forward quickly.

  Kate looked over her shoulder at me once, grinning like a child with a new toy. Before I could react, she pulled the pistol from her belt and flipped it in the air so that she was holding it by the barrel like a club.

  Then she shot forward like a cannonball.

  She hit the corpse like a linebacker, driving it into the stall again. Her shoulder took it in the chest and her lowered head canted away from the thing’s mouth. Before it could recover, she had stepped back, one arm pinning it to the aluminum wall, the other flashing forward with the pistol clenched firmly in hand.

  The sound of metal on skull reached me quickly through the empty space, and then it was metal on brain. Repeatedly, the gun came down against fleshy resistance. I heard Kate swearing as I rushed forward, certain that the thing was down. She had stopped and was now leaning forward against the wall. The pistol dropped from her hand as her body started to shake silently. The corpse behind her slid to the floor silently, its ruined head flopping to the side.

  I slowed and placed my hand on her back, gently. She turned quickly and hugged me tightly, burying her face in my shoulder, her body shaking. After so much running and suppressing, she wept silently and fiercely into my shoulder. Kate’s tears soaked through my flight suit, but I stood still, arms tight around her slender frame as she released, finally, the weeks of pent-up anxiety and fear. My hand moved to her head, and I placed my palm against the back of her thick hair, cradling her head firmly but gently.

  She cried for at least two minutes as we stood, alone, in the middle of the rest stop bathroom. The wind shrieked outside, and the rain made millions of small footsteps on the metal roof. Leaves scratched against the windows and branches groaned in the force of the wind.

  After a while, I felt her head move under my hand, and her crying slowed. She tilted her head back slightly and looked up at me. I simply returned the look. There was nothing to be said.

  Our friend had just died. Her daughter was on the other side of the country. Our families were all likely dead, and our world was falling down around us.

  We both knew these things. We both mourned these losses.

  But as I stood there, with her rich, dark eyes looking up at me, none of that seemed to matter.

  I moved my hand to her forehead, brushing away hair from her eyes. She smiled slightly, and I leaned forward slowly, pressing my lips against hers in a gesture I had imagined thousands of times in the short time since we met. I could feel her smile underneath the kiss, and we simply stood there.

  Still, and unafraid in our embrace.

  Finally feeling like human beings.

  Finally, for a brief moment, feeling happy.

  Chapter 17

  The storm lasted another two hours. Enjoying the fresh air, we simply sat underneath the metal roof and enjoyed the peace. The vending machines were a cache of unhealthy loot. Potato chips, cookies, and timeless pastries were free for the taking—after one very careful shattering of the machine’s plate glass.

  We munched silently, keeping our eyes trained on the surrounding forest and ears perked for unusual sound. But we sat in a small nook overlooking the parking lot, with on
ly one avenue of approach, so we were certain that we’d have warning before being in real danger.

  I had detached the highway map from the display case and between nacho chips was trying to determine our location and our best avenue to cross the state and make way for D.C.. Delaware was a small state, and the peninsula was only about 70 miles across between the Chesapeake and the Delaware bays. We were near Dover, a narrower portion of the state than the Southern end, where the beach resorts were, so we only had to travel across roughly 70 miles of farmland to reach the bridge to the mainland.

  Internally, I grimaced at the thought of crossing the Bay Bridge. If it still stood, assuming no incursions with aircraft carriers or cruise missiles, it was about 4 miles long. It was actually two bridges, one Eastbound and one Westbound; both were fairly narrow and, through likely zombie crowding, promised to be quite a long trip. If you got cornered in the middle of one of those, there weren’t that many places to hide.

  But I was encouraged by my memories of the hellish drives to the beach resorts when we lived in D.C.. Between the bridge and the resorts, there weren’t many people. It was mostly farmland, with some tract housing and small towns scattered every five or ten miles. If we could avoid the hordes of zombies, which we could try to do by avoiding likely congregation points, we should be able to get across the state with little effort. Might even be able to find an abandoned rural grocery store somewhere.

  I took a long swig from one of the few bottles of water that was left in the machine as I turned back to Kate. Her eyes were staring at the tree line, fingers absently tapping on the barrel of her rifle.

  “So should we talk about what happened in there?” I asked softly, offering her a drink. She had finished two bottles in the time that it had taken me to go through half of one of mine. No wonder she had to pee so badly before.