by Tony Urban
Shortly after they fled Pennsylvania, boredom overcame them and they stopped in a small Maryland border town where they held a contest to see who could kill the most zombies in 60 seconds. The center of town seemed a suitable site as several dozen creatures roamed freely.
Mead, armed with his hockey stick went first as Bundy checked his watch. Mead strolled toward the zombies, stuck his index and middle fingers into his mouth, and let out a shrill whistle. “Time to die, motherfuckers!”
All the zombies were of the slower variety. That’s something Mead had noticed over the last few days. Almost all of them seemed to have slowed down. He only witnessed one runner after day three and that was a man Mead saw get attacked and turn.
When Mead whistled, the zombies headed in his direction. The leader of the pack was a beefy, senior citizen and with one swing of the stick, Mead sliced his head open diagonally from his jowls to his eyebrows.
Next up was a teenage girl in a Catholic school uniform. Mead took a moment to admire how the swells of her breasts pushed against the white material of her shirt, then remembered this was a race. He used the knife end of the stick to pierce her eye socket.
He felled another 18 zombies in the minute. The last one was a police officer and after Mead brought the bladed end of the stick down squarely on the top of his head, opening a crevice through which the man’s dead brains were visible, Bundy yelled, "Time!"
“I was hoping I’d get that one.” Bundy added.
Mead dropped back to the van. He felt good about his performance and hoped he’d impressed the big man. He wanted his respect. He felt he’d earned it.
The zombies were thicker now, drawn by the commotion. Bundy took his spot at the front of the vehicle and leaned back against the hood. Mead felt the front end sag.
“Ready?” Bundy asked.
“Whenever you are.”
“Go.”
Bundy drew his pistol, raised it and aimed. He plinked a woman in a “World’s Greatest Mom!” shirt first. Then a boy in a soccer uniform, then a middle aged man who had much of his face eaten away. He hit three more, all head shots, before firing a round that went through the cheek of a woman in a lime green pantsuit and flew out the other side.
“Almost got a hole in one!” Mead called out.
Bundy aimed again and that time the bullet stuck beside her eye and the left side of her face blew out. He killed two more and his magazine was empty. No problem though as he smoothly expelled it and replaced it with another from his pocket.
He was hurrying though and his first shot went wide. Bundy got back on his game and shot and killed 7 in a row. He hit the 8th in the throat and it kept coming and he used another round to kill it. He offed a woman in yoga pants with his last round. Bundy had a few seconds left but needed to reload magazines so he was done.
“Seventeen.” Bundy said. “You got me.”
"Not by much. You’re a hell of a shot."
"You should see me with a rifle. Used to do thousand yard shooting for fun.”
"A thousand yards? Holy shit. You could stand here and kill zombies back in Pennsylvania.”
Bundy chuckled and climbed back into the van. “Want to finish them off?”
Another dozen zombies remained in the road ahead of them.
“With pleasure.”
Mead dispatched them with ease, but in the process he completely decapitated one of the creatures. As the severed head tumbled through the air like a wobbly football, black blood flew into Mead’s ridiculously long hair.
When he finished, he joined Bundy in the van and grabbed some partially used napkins from the floor. He used them to wring the gore from his locks, then tossed the bloodied paper onto the floor. Bundy looked at him and shook his head. More zombies wandered toward them, but the road was clear and the men let them be.
17
When the hospital elevator reached the ground floor, the doors opened to chaos in the lobby. Nurses were eating patients. Patients were eating visitors. A janitor munched on the meaty arm of a man who could only be a high ranking hospital executive judging by his expensive suit. Mina couldn’t count the number of zombies but, by some miracle, all of them were busy devouring other people.
She kept tight against the walls and made it to the exit before being noticed. She might have made a clean break if the automatic sliding glass doors hadn’t created a ruckus by slamming into a dying paramedic. The paramedic screamed and every zombie in the lobby looked in his direction.
Mina, was less than five feet away, and directly in their line of sight. She sprinted for the open doors, almost tripping over a patient on a stretcher. When she stumbled into it, she saw the patient strapped to it was dead. Even though a neck brace held its head in place, its jaws snapped at her.
The other zombies were coming for her. She shoved the stretcher at them, then sprinted into the warm daylight. Despite her father coming back to life, despite the bloodbath in the hospital, Mina expected to find safety outside. It was similar to how she always expected her father to wake up and be kind. Somehow, despite a life filled with pain and disappointment, Mina remained an optimist.
The zombies on the street raced for her as soon as her feet struck the sidewalk. I’m going to die, she thought. She was finally free of her father’s torture only to die a few hours later. That must be her punishment for wishing him dead. Her life would end before she had time to enjoy herself.
She glanced back at the hospital where the automatic doors had opened again and zombies rushed out. The zombies on the street also moved in her direction. She considered closing her eyes and waiting for death when she heard an engine running. She turned toward the sound and saw an ambulance idling underneath a sign labeled “Admissions”.
The ambulance was 10 yards away, but it looked like a mile as Mina rushed toward it. The growls of the chasing zombies drowned out her pounding footsteps. She could smell the sickness on them, like fever sweats and rotten potatoes mixed. The odor became overwhelming the closer they got to her.
As she grabbed the handle and pulled the ambulance door open, she felt a zombie at her back. It grabbed on to her hair and her head snapped. She yanked her head forward and felt her hair slip free from its bloody hands as she dove into the ambulance head first.
Mina quickly grabbed the door to pull it closed but as she did, a zombie got its arm in between the door and the frame. The metal squashed the appendage with a crunch that made Mina think of stepping on a potato chip. She opened and closed the door again and that time a squishing sound accompanied the crunch. One more try and the door tore through the zombie’s forearm. Its hand fell inside the ambulance and, outside, the zombie battered the window with its stump.
Mina grabbed the shifter and was ready to throw the van into drive when a symphony of tinkling glass and clanging metal in the back stole her attention. She spun in the seat and looked behind her and that’s when she saw the zombie in a paramedic’s uniform. He’d pulled a drawer of medicines and medical instruments onto himself and was covered in them as he sprawled on the floor.
Glass vials broke underneath the zombie as it rolled aimlessly and tried to get off its back and to its feet. The pile of fallen debris complicated that task. To Mina, it looked like a turtle someone had sat upside down on its shell.
Through the windshield, Mina saw dozens of zombies swarming toward her. She searched the dash and the storage compartments for anything she could use as a weapon. In the glove box she found a box of insulin syringes. She ripped open the box and tore the packaging off one of them. After removing the cover, she saw the needle was less than half an inch long and about as thick as a strand of hair.
“Oh, damn. Damn it all!”
“It’s gonna get ya, Birdie,” she heard her father’s voice shout inside her head. “You ain’t getting out of this alive.”
While she looked for a better option, the paramedic zombie heard her. More glass broke and more equipment went flying as it flailed. Soon it had cleared enough space
that it could roll onto its belly. Then it climbed to its knees and crawled toward the front of the bus.
When it growled, it got Mina’s attention. She looked back. The paramedic was two feet away. The man had several large bite marks on his arms and still wore its blue, protective latex gloves. It growled again and Mina could smell the death coming from its mouth.
The zombie swatted at her and caught Mina’s bare arm in its hand. Mina felt the coldness coming through the glove. The zombie squeezed hard, putting deep divots in her skin but the glove prevented his nails from breaking Mina’s skin.
Mina tried to pull away but couldn’t and she settled on holding it back instead. “You’re gonna die, Birdie. Deserve it too after what you did to me. Kill your own daddy with a piss pot of all things. Dirty Birdie.”
“Screw you, Daddy!” Mina said to the voice in her head. It had renewed her strength and with her free hand she reached for the syringe she’d set aside. As she felt for it she looked up at the zombie, its dead eyes staring back. They looked like they'd been blue once. She found the syringe and gripped it in her fist.
Mina knew she had one chance, and she aimed carefully. The needle slid into the zombie’s right eye. Nothing happened initially, then fluid oozed out. Mina kept pushing until she felt the needle hit resistance and break. She left the syringe jutting from the monster’s eye and felt for another. She found the box but couldn’t free the syringe from its paper wrapper with one hand. Mina put it to her mouth and ripped the packaging off with her teeth.
Pink vitreous fluid from the zombie’s right eye dripped down the syringe and onto Mina’s cheek. She spat out the syringe’s packaging, then used her mouth to pull off the cap.
With a quick jab, Mina pierced the zombie’s left eye with the new needle. With both eyes blinded the paramedic released Mina and flailed wildly. Mina shoved it backward where it landed in a heap of supplies and equipment. Both syringes jutted from its eye sockets and it fell over and over again each time it tried to rise.
Ahead, zombies had clogged the street from one side to the other. She checked her mirrors and only a dozen or so looked to be behind her. When she shifted into reverse and hit the gas, she heard the big, boxy vehicle slam into the creatures. One went under the tires and she felt them spin. She hit the gas but didn’t move.
“No you don’t. Not now.” She grabbed the four-wheel-drive stick and engaged it. When she hit the gas, the ambulance lurched, then rolled over the zombies on the ground. She kept backing up until she’d cleared a 15-foot-long path, then did a three point turn in the street and headed in the opposite direction of the main horde.
She ran over a few more zombies, but was soon clear of them. Mina didn't know where to go. Escaping the hospital seemed like accomplishment enough. As her daddy said, everything else was gravy.
18
Emory’s second crash was, thankfully, less violent than the first. When the Bronco hit the zombies, the soft mass of them absorbed the momentum. Bodies bounced and crunched but the Bronco itself came to a slow stop and was unscathed aside from a few fresh dents and a crinkled hood.
He felt his heart racing and worried for a moment he might be on the precipice of another coronary event. Wim reached over and rested his strong hand on his shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
Emory nodded and deliberately slowed his breathing. “I am. Thank you for asking.”
“It was my own fault for driving too fast. I’m sorry.”
“No apologies necessary, Wim.” Emory stared through the windshield where a dozen or so zombies remained. “Do you think we can drive through them?”
Wim followed his gaze. “Maybe."
Emory felt the Bronco creep forward. It only made it a few inches before stopping. Wim pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the engine roared, but the vehicle didn’t move.
“I do believe we are trapped,” Emory said.
Wim nodded. “Mmm hmm.” He rummaged through the back seat.
While he did that, Emory watched the zombies press against the truck. They had them surrounded now. Emory flicked on the dome light and could see their faces squashed against the windows. Their hands clawed desperately at the glass.
A young woman stared at him. Half her head was shaved and the word "Faithful" was tattooed on her neck. Emory tried to look past her death and into the person she had been. No humanity remained in her eyes, but that didn’t change the fact that she'd been as alive as he and Wim recently. He imagined her standing in a mosh pit in a concert, banging her head or crowd-surfing or whatever the punk crowd was into these days.
To her right was an older man, but one still younger than Emory himself. He wore glasses with lenses so thick they magnified his eyes and turned him into something of a caricature. He wore a suit, but one straight off the rack. Emory thought he could be an accountant or, perhaps, an actuary. Something boring, but important.
Further back a priest, whose white collar was stained red by blood, tried to fight his way through the crowd. He still clutched rosary beads in one hand but the other was a wild claw, slashing and lashing out at everything around him.
If you allowed yourself, it was easy to forget these were people. Too easy. Emory supposed it a necessary coping mechanism. One vital to surviving their plight and not dissolving into a puddle of anxiety and distress. If you thought of them as monsters, it was easier to fight them. To kill them. Although, that was something he had yet to do, and hoped to avoid as long as possible.
He’d left all the killing to poor Wim and, while he admired the farmer’s capabilities, he wondered what would happen if Wim allowed himself to stop and think. Emory almost hoped that never happened. That Wim might never look at them and see the life of the dead.
Wim emerged with a pistol that had a long, skinny barrel. “You might want to cover your ears. This is apt to be loud.”
Emory plugged his ear canals with his fingers and watched Wim roll down the driver’s side window just enough to push out the barrel. Then, he started shooting.
I’m sorry, Emory thought as they fell under the hail of gunfire. I know this must be done, but I’m sorry for what you’ve become.
He realized he wasn’t certain which you he meant. The zombies, or Wim and himself. There were no heroes in this violent, dangerous world. No victors in the battle between the living and the dead.
19
He said his name was Ted Dash and declared himself a retired Navy SEAL but the more he talked, the less Jorge was inclined to believe anything he said. Still, his assault rifle ("Converted it to full auto myself”) complete with a 70 round drum magazine ("Bought it on the dark web from a little Chinaman”) meant, when Dash spoke, Bolivar listened.
Dash said he’d come to Dover AFB to "volunteer to kill the zombie motherfuckers." He’d arrived a few hours before Bolivar and, as he told the story, “Found the gates locked tighter than a nun’s snatch. Didn’t see no one left alive. Really alive, I mean, of course. Just those zombie fuckers.” He pointed to the dead soldiers. “So I kilt em. Didn’t feel right exactly, shooting fellow soldiers, but I figured I was doin em a favor. I wouldn’t want to be walking around like that, killing people and eatin their skin, for all of eternity. Nope, not me. So I figured it was a mercy killin.”
Dash said he'd ran out of gas three miles from the base and jogged the rest of the way. Bolivar half expected him to steal his car, not that it was actually his, but instead Dash asked for a ride.
“Where you headin?” Dash asked.
Bolivar struggled for an answer but came up blank. “I’m not sure.”
“Way I see it, D.C.’s the best option.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Cause of the President and shit. They got to be evacuating everyone.”
Bolivar considered telling him what happened to Philadelphia, but decided to keep that bit of information to himself.
Dash was pushing 50 and his high and tight had gone gray. He was tall and fit with only the slightest b
eginnings of a gut. His tanned skin was so brown it looked like shoe leather. He was full of tales of covert missions in exotic Latin American locations and heroic escapades overthrowing dictators, pairing up with drug cartels, and bedding native women. Jorge doubted all of it, but the chatter helped pass the time as the situation outside the car deteriorated.
Zombies had overrun the nation’s capital. Many wore suits. Former lobbyists, aides or maybe even members of congress. Others had been tourists, complete with novelty tee-shirts and cameras that still hung from straps around their necks. Together they formed enormous crowds, a zombie version of a march on the city and filled the streets from side to side. Jorge was forced to make detours through alleyways and side streets to avoid the masses of them.
"It’s gone,” Bol said. “We have to get out of here.”
Dash stared out the windows of the car and clenched his AK so tight his knuckles went snow white. “Keep drivin, brother. Get us to the White House, then we’ll decide.”
When they rolled on to Pennsylvania Avenue, Bolivar parked the car at the cylindrical barriers that blocked motor vehicles from driving past the White House. Zombies shuffled around the two blocks in front of the iconic building.
"Satisfied?" Bol asked.
Instead of answering, Dash opened his car door and stepped into the diminishing orange light of the afternoon.
“Come on! Don’t go out there!” Bolivar yelled.
Dash marched away from the car, raising the AK to his shoulder. “I gotta see it for myself.”
Against all his instincts, Bolivar exited the car and followed. There were a few dozen zombies in the street, but they wandered aimlessly and weren’t packed together like they had been in other parts of the city. As they stumbled about, they careened off of fences and discarded bicycles and kiosks that had once sold cheap trinkets. Bol realized the reason there were fewer monsters here was because they couldn’t easily maneuver through the vehicle barriers.