LZR-1143: Evolution

by Bryan James

  One thing at a time.

  “Civics class, fourth grade,” said Ky, also staring at the rotunda and avoiding looking at the gore spread along the marble and carpet at intervals. We walked beneath the metal detectors arrayed along the doorway and I spied what we needed: a visitor’s map.

  Our footsteps echoed loudly on the marble tile as we crossed the atrium to a large map spread out tastefully behind a visitor’s desk. I looked for the telltale “You Are Here” arrow, and scanned for the stairwell doors, finding what I needed and turning to Kate and Ky.

  “Okay, plan is simple. Stairwell to the top floor, maintenance stairs to the roof, and we take a peek at the mall and the bridges, see if we can’t find a clear pathway across the river. Sound good?”

  Ky looked at Kate and back to me.

  “Uh, this is your plan B?”

  I sighed and looked at the ceiling then back to the young woman who looked confused, and slightly worried.

  “Yeah kiddo, this is what I’ve got. We’re only a couple of miles away. We’ve defied the odds up until now, and you gotta believe we can keep it up, okay?”

  I tried to convey a sense of hope that I didn’t feel. She smiled wanly and nodded as Kate walked slowly to the left, toward the House side of the building. We followed closely behind, and Romeo ranged forward, always careful to keep us within eye and earshot.

  We passed through the ornate archway leading out of the rotunda, and through a dark hallway, paintings of past Congressional leaders adorning the walls. The historical and political significance of the setting was marred only by the odd graffiti sprayed on the walls, and the streaks of dark, dried blood on the carpet. The decaying form of a capitol police officer sat slumped over a large desk, hands splayed out in on the top, head facing us. The top of his skull had been shattered, and large gobbets of brain matter dripped onto the floor, gathered beneath the opened skull.

  I stepped forward, trying to shield Ky from the sight as we passed through another metal detector and into another, smaller rotunda. This one had clearly marked stairs on one side next to the nonfunctional elevators, while on the other, the large, double doors leading to what was marked as the House Chamber. If I remembered my civics class correctly, this was where the House of Representatives convened and held votes.

  As we walked toward the stairwell, Kate grabbed my hand and pointed with her pistol.

  “Check that out,” she said quietly.

  I followed her gaze to the thick chain wrapped tightly around the handles of the large doors leading into the House Chamber. A hastily scrawled sign was taped above the chain, and we all stepped closer to make out the words: You can all stay in here until you get some goddamned work done!

  I looked at Kate and back to the sign. The same graffiti mark as was scrawled on the hallways outside the guard booth was painted carefully on the doors.

  That couldn’t mean ... It wasn’t possible.

  I pulled the large doors slightly, creating a slim line of light between the doors to the chamber.

  The doors slammed suddenly against the chain as multiple bodies pressed against the heavy wood, rotting faces in suits adorned with Congressional pins pressing their faces into the crack as if they were willing themselves to melt through the small opening and into the rotunda.

  I jumped back, disgusted but ever so slightly amused.

  Behind me, Ky whistled softly.

  “That wasn’t in any of my civics classes,” she said, backing up to the stairwell door.

  “No shit,” I said, walking away and wondering at the mark that was left on the doorway. Someone or something had incapacitated that guard. Could have been a zombie. Could have been a human. I guess it didn’t matter much to him.

  It did give me slight pause to consider that Congress had actually come to work on the day it all ended, a true juxtaposition to their behavior in other times of crisis. I guess “zombie plague” ranked as one of the few reasons left for them to clock in and get some damn work done.

  The stairwell door was unlocked, and we pressed forward. We climbed several floors until reaching the top, where we carefully pushed the large handle and opened the heavy security door. A long, ornate carpeted hallway stretched to either side, lined with dark wood doors.

  “Look for the door marked ‘roof access,’” I said, gesturing to the left for Kate and indicating to Ky that she should follow me. Kate turned and moved down the hallway, scanning each door for the correct marking.

  Ky and I did the same, making good time with two sets of eyes. At the end of the hallway to the right, I found it, and turned to call to Kate, but there was no need. She was walking back with her hands in the air, indicating defeat. I pointed at the door and she nodded, starting to jog toward us.

  It was a heavy, riveted metal door recessed in a small nook at the end of the hall next to a vending machine and a water fountain. It was unlocked, and as we walked into the narrow hallway leading to the metal stairs going upwards, I could see why. Lines of provisions, such as MRE’s and bottled water were lined up in the small space. They were marked “Maryland National Guard” and had date stamps along the edges from weeks ago.

  The military had clearly planned something here, but to no avail.

  We paused long enough to dump the supplies we had and replace them with the lighter MRE’s and fresh water, then mounted the stairs to the roof access door. Behind us, the stairwell continued, presumably to the top of the dome. But I thought that we could get the view we needed from here, so we stopped and went outside. As we exited, I noticed the self-locking mechanism in place, since it was an exterior door to a secure building, and I lodged a spare MRE in the gap between the door and frame to prevent getting locked outside.

  The walkway along the edge of the roof extended the length of the flat surface, and had ornate and decorative waist-high railings. We moved toward the edge, and I took in a deep breath as I looked toward the Washington Mall.

  This was not your father’s Washington Mall.

  The once-green space that extended from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial was covered in the evidence of death and destruction that had become the hallmark of our new world. Abandoned vehicles were parked in and around the vast park, some smoking as if from long-smoldering fires. In regular intervals, the military had attempted to set up barricades and restricted spaces, but had been stymied by what appeared to be the raw press of humanity. Tents, campers, and other marks of refugees littered the commons, and the half-completed line of barbed wire that was surrounding the pitifully small remnants of humanity was toppled in several places.

  The Washington Monument itself appeared to have been a rally point of some kind, and was surrounded by tanks and troop carriers, all now abandoned and burned out, as if set ablaze or hit with friendly fire in the confusion that had clearly reigned.

  Behind the Washington Monument was the most shocking evidence of this new world. The carcass of a massive 747 with blue and gray markings rested crosswise on the grass, its belly flush against the back of the World War II Memorial, one wing still attached and pointing straight up into the air, like the rotting, fetid flipper of a long dead beached whale. The raggedly torn tail section of the aircraft rested in three feet of water at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, at the far end of the Mall.

  The tent city ended at 14th Street, before the Washington Monument; beyond the military units rallied and burned out at the top of the monument’s hills, the Mall was abandoned. Deep, muddy tracks led from the area toward Constitution Avenue, and it was those tracks I followed closely. Clearly, many vehicles, possibly hundreds, had evacuated the area after making a stand in the park. The monument itself bore signs of close combat, with charring and smoke damage marring the white marble sheathing.

  The tracks faded into the tree line beyond the edge of the park, and I allowed my eyes to wander into the distance, scanning against the bright light for any other signs of occupation.

  Beside me, Ky looked up and tapped my arm.


  “Look up there,” she said pointing to the top of the dome, where the long barrel of a large rifle was pointed toward the sky, secured to the ledge by a large tripod.

  I pressed my eyelids together in pain, trying to shake off the bright sunlight. Must have been one of the Guard units assigned here. I nodded once to Ky, squinting back into the sun as I scanned the distance.

  “What are you squinting at, man? It’s cloudy out.”

  I scoffed, looking at Kate squinting into the bright sun as well.

  “Whatever, kid,” I said dubiously, still scanning.

  “Seriously, man. Look, can you see those helicopters over the river?” she asked, pointing above the Lincoln Memorial in the distance. I squinted so hard that my eyes were nearly closed before I could detect the seemingly small movements in the distance. Two of them, moving quickly along the path of the Potomac, toward where I knew the Pentagon was located.

  Bingo!

  But why the hell was the light so bright?

  “Good eyes, Ky.” I said quickly, turning to Kate. “You see those?”

  “Not until she pointed them out,” she said, holding a hand over the side of her face to block the light. “It seem hot to you out here?”

  Come to think of it, it did.

  “Ky, what’s your take on the temperature?”

  She shrugged, looking at both of us worriedly.

  “I dunno. Maybe 70 degrees? It’s like seven in the morning, so ... You guys okay? You seem weird.”

  “Yeah, well. Story of my life.”

  Shit. What the hell was wrong with us?

  “Whatever it is, we don’t have time to worry about it right now. Those choppers mean that someone is alive over there. We need to contact those helicopters and the people inside the Pentagon. Ideas?”

  Kate stared onto the mall as I spoke, then slowly turned back to me, holding up a single finger.

  “Only one,” she said. “But it’s a doozy.”

  Chapter 41

  We stayed on the roof for another half hour, gauging the movements of any packs we saw. We split up, and Kate spotted two from the rear of the building, one moving behind the Supreme Court building towards the Senate Office Buildings to the North, and one moving along Constitution Avenue, toward the river. Both included thousands of creatures.

  Ky spotted one pack, moving past the Lincoln Memorial toward the Tidal Basin.

  I saw two more, moving along Independence Avenue past the Capitol, and along 7th Street, moving south away from the Mall. So it was that when we reached the front steps of the Capitol, we felt we had a window of opportunity to reach our objective.

  “Isn’t there somewhere closer that has a radio?”

  It was as close to a whine as I heard from Ky so far, which was impressive considering what we had been through.

  I picked my way carefully over another bloody and scorched sandbag emplacement at the foot of the stairs and moved up to the hood of a parked Humvee, staring into the mall. Kate and I had taken a brief siesta and trashed the Capitol gift shop, finding some cheap sunglasses to ward off the piercing sunlight. Ky looked at us like we were crazy the whole time, until she found the piece of beef jerky she was chewing on now, as she looked at us doubtfully.

  “Sorry, kid. All these vehicles were abandoned for a reason, and some of them don’t even have radios. We know there’s a radio in the plane with a reserve battery for emergencies.”

  “At least we think we know that,” said Kate.

  “Right,” I said shortly, stepping over a dismembered hand that had been chewed to the bone.

  Ky looked at us both like were crazy, then readjusted her pack.

  We skirted the capitol reflecting pond, and picked our way carefully between vehicles and tents, watching the flapping of tent fabric and ropes in the wind, careful to cover any movement. When we had passed the National Gallery of Art, about halfway to the Washington Monument, we heard the signature thumping of helicopter rotor blades high overhead. Suddenly, not more than a hundred feet above our heads, a black military helicopter ripped overhead at more than eighty knots, making a direct line toward the Pentagon.

  Ky stood up, arms going above her head as if to try signaling, but I grabbed her by her backpack, dragging her to the ground behind me and taking Kate’s lead as she hit the deck.

  “They’re gone already! Don’t make a sound—that helo is going to draw those things to the noise.” My voice was a hard whisper, but she nodded and I released the pack.

  We lay there, mute and immobile. No more than five minutes passed as we lay in the grass staring toward the monument, until we heard them.

  They emerged into the light from the Gallery of Art, hundreds of them shambling onto Madison Drive, merely a hundred feet from where we lay. From beneath the large truck under which we had sheltered, I watched the feet and legs shamble to the West, following the noise of the helicopter toward the river.

  And, coincidentally, toward the plane.

  I cursed, and tapped Kate’s leg.

  “We’ll have to hang out here for a while. They’re heading in our direction.”

  She nodded back to me, and continuing staring toward the road.

  Suddenly, Ky squirmed next to me and grabbed my hand, pointing toward Independence Avenue on our other side, where a second large pack was emerging from behind the Air and Space Museum and moving toward the first pack, likely to join in pursuit.

  The problem was, we were right smack dab between the two groups.

  Romeo whimpered behind us.

  I seconded that emotion.

  “Kate, we have to move,” I said, and she turned around, eyes wide.

  “Are you crazy, those things ... Oh. Shit,” she corrected herself mid-sentence as she saw the second pack drifting toward us.

  “If we stay low, and behind cover, they might not see us until we have to sprint across the Monument. Once we’re in the plane, we might be able to climb up top, or ... I don’t know.” I glanced back at them approaching, thousands of them shuffling forward slowly but constantly.

  “But we need to leave here, now,” she said, rising to a crouch.

  So we ran.

  Keeping low and hiding behind shredded and bloody tent fabric and abandoned cars, ducking behind burned out military vehicles and sandbags, we stayed out of sight, careful to make no loud noises. We knew they didn’t see well, and that hearing was their big advantage. We used this knowledge as best we could, and made it to the last row of tents behind the military command center, where toppled equipment and empty chairs sat strewn across the grass floor. Blood stains throughout testified to the fate of its former residents.

  I was breathing hard, and Romeo wagged once at me before sitting down, staring at Ky as she adjusted her pack. The kid wasn’t even winded.

  Kate was inhaling deeply, eyes up and watching the herd approaching, now from our rear and slightly to the left. I scanned the distance and spoke quietly but urgently, breath coming in gasps.

  “Okay, this is it. They can’t avoid seeing us when we make this sprint over the monument hill and toward the plane. Keep moving, try to keep quiet as long as possible, and remember that there’s another herd in front of us. When the second one sees us ... well, we don’t know if these things can communicate, but they can sure make noise, and that’s enough to turn that other group around.”

  I finished as Kate simply nodded once and Ky frowned.

  “And what if we can’t get in the plane? Or the radio doesn’t work? Or ...”

  I shook my head.

  “We’ll think about it when we get there. No time now.” I leaned my head out, scanning the pathway to the plane.

  “Now’s as good a time as any,” I said. “Let’s go!”

  I had never run so hard in my life. We bolted from our cover behind the erstwhile command tent and up the slight incline, past the burned out military vehicles, and crested the small hill. As we began down the hill, we heard them.

  All of them.

  In
a chorus of moans, they saw something they might not have seen for days, maybe weeks: fresh meat. In the mind’s eye of my imagination, I heard them accelerate. I saw them salivate. I knew them to be hungry.

  We crossed the long expanse of grass and then over 17th Street and through the World War II Memorial. I spared a glance to my right as we passed within view of the White House, several blocks distant to the North. A thin stream of black smoke rose into the air from behind the iron fence, but the building looked to be intact. A multitude of military vehicles were arrayed in front, likely the last bastion of protection afforded the President before he left D.C..

  If he was able to leave D.C..

  The belly of the plane was facing us, and we jogged around the crumpled nose, looking up at the cracked windows in the cockpit. The fuselage of the plane was shattered in several places, and the largest opening was in the rear, where the tail section had been ripped from the body in the violent crash.

  The horde behind us had reached the Washington Monument, and Ky was watching worriedly for signs that the pack in front of us, now shambling past the Lincoln Memorial and toward the Arlington Bridge in pursuit of the low and fast flying helicopter, was aware of our presence. They hadn’t turned yet, and were gaining distance from us as they pursued the elusive metal bird.

  Romeo darted into the fuselage, tail up and alert. I followed him slowly, noting the bloody and burned interior of the aircraft, and the many mangled and bloodied bodies still strapped to their seats. Several were still mobile, arms moving and bodies thrashing violently as we picked our way carefully through the cabin. They were seated on the wall—formerly the bottom of the plane—and were suspended by the thick nylon of their seat belts, and I had to destroy several with quick blows from the machete as we skirted along the ceiling and toward the cockpit. Those seated nearer to the far windows, I left suspended and dangling, no danger to any of us. Kate followed us both, machete raised. Ky was the lookout, and was now staring at the approaching horde from the top of the fuselage.