A Broken World: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by Andrew Lauck

  As I rounded the corner onto her street, I stopped dead in my tracks. At least a dozen infected surrounded her house, some climbing in the window while others beat on the cracking door. I reached around and brought out my Sig, finger on the trigger. I stopped thinking when I approached the house, knowing any thought would make shooting people I had known my whole life that much harder.

  The window seemed to be the most likely point of entry, so I made a hard push toward the right of the house. Three zombies were gathered around the window, one of them trying to climb in so only his legs were visible. I recognized one of them as the wife of a newlywed couple that moved next door to me and Samantha when we were still together. Despite my attempt to focus solely on getting to Samantha, I hesitated.

  “Michelle, listen to me. I need you to back away,” I said slowly. Her head twisted in my direction, and her lifeless eyes locked on to me. She shuffled toward me, one leg bent at an awkward angle. “Please don’t make me do this,” I pleaded, already knowing she was gone. In one swift motion, I brought up the Sig and shot both Michelle and the zombie behind her in the head.

  I ran forward and grabbed the leg still extended from the window, pulling the zombie from the house. Its stomach dragged across the broken glass of the window, slicing it open and letting its intestines drop to the ground before the torso dislodged and fell to the ground. The zombie slipped around on the gore underneath it and cocked its head back to try and bite me, but I wasted no time before firing a round through its brain. I wasn’t sure that would work, but I was trusting Hollywood on their facts.

  After climbing through the window, I found the nearest bookshelf, and toppled it behind me, blocking the entrance. Glancing over the living room, I saw a bloody patch on the carpet and immediately called out for Samantha. While I couldn’t be sure more zombies hadn’t climbed in before I got here, I was too preoccupied with the fear that clutched my chest.

  “Samantha!” I yelled, stepping quickly across the carpet and heading for the kitchen. I was hoping Samantha had listened for once and gone to the closet. When I got to the hallway, my eyes noticed the pool of blood spreading from the kitchen and soaking the once-brown carpet in a deep crimson. “No,” I whispered, forcing myself into the kitchen.

  At first I thought Phillip was kneeling over her and crying because his small body was heaving, but as I got closer I saw the horrifying truth. My son’s hands were digging into Samantha’s stomach and ripping at her insides, tearing flesh and shoving handfuls into his mouth. Phillip’s head perked up, and his head swiveled slowly to face me, a childlike grin stamped on his face under the crust of drying blood. That image would forever replace any thought I had of my family. Samantha was choking on blood, her throat clogging, but she reached her hand out to me through tear-filled eyes.

  I raised my gun and trained the sights of my Sig on Phillip, but looking at my little boy, I couldn’t pull the trigger. Despite all the blood and what he did to Samantha, I refused to let go of him. He stood up and started toward me, but my arm felt too weak to lift the gun. Then I looked past him and locked eyes with Samantha, the woman that I had loved with all my heart years ago and still did no matter how much I wanted to deny it. The look on her face was pure agony and sadness, and my body grew numb. Without looking away, I raised the Sig and pulled the trigger, hearing Phillip’s small body fall to the floor.

  My knees buckled, and my heart sank with my body as I moved to Samantha and grabbed her outstretched hand tightly in my own. I put the Sig down next to me and stroked her hair, trying to soothe her.

  “I’m sorry, Samantha. I’m so sorry,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “God…I’m sorry.” Her body jerked as she tried to clear her throat.

  “It’s…o-okay.” Her lips parted in a thin smile, and her hand touched my cheek. “I l-love you.”

  “I love you, too, baby.” I reached under her and propped her head up on my leg. Her eyes stared back at me, and I watched as the life left them, her lungs expelling a final painful breath. I clutched her head against my chest, my body shaking as I broke down. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, shouting defiantly in hopes that it wasn’t real, that she couldn’t die as long as I held her, but every regret played out in my mind: What if we had still be together? What if I had been there? What if I had gotten there sooner? There were so many questions crushing me with guilt.

  I was still hunched over her body when I heard the door break down; a loud thump resounding as it thudded onto the carpet in the living room. My body refused to respond, not wanting to leave Samantha to be eaten by those things, or even worse, become one herself. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but I didn’t want her to come back to un-life. Running on pure survival instinct because the rest of me was dead to the world, I managed to stand and pick up my Sig before the first zombie came into view.

  The pistol went off, and the back of the zombie’s head exploded outward, sending brain matter and bone onto the hallway behind it. I ran to the drawers in the kitchen, pulling them open in a frantic hurry to locate matches. Upon finding them, another zombie stepped around the corner and received the same fate as the one before it. I was done trying to coax the infected people to sense. The people I had once known and loved were gone and replaced by the horrible monsters before me, and I blamed all of them for what I lost.

  Striking one of the matches, I used it to light the rest of the box and tossed the whole flaming thing into the living room. I remember months ago telling Samantha to change carpets because the fibers she used were flammable, so of course, I knew she hadn’t. The flames spread quickly across the carpet, rapidly engulfing the room. I moved for the back door, but before I reached the exit I noticed something that demanded my attention.

  Samantha’s room was toward the back of the house, and as I passed it I saw a small picture frame on her bedside table. I looked toward the living room, not knowing how much time I had as flames licked at the wallpaper, but ran inside the bedroom anyway. In the picture, I was hugging Samantha to me from behind, and in her arms she held our baby Phillip. I still remember when we took that picture. It was on a small beach in Hawaii where I took Samantha for our fifth anniversary.

  It took too long to unscrew the corners of the frame’s backing, so I broke the frame with the side of my fist, and gently wiped away the broken glass. I pried the picture carefully out of the frame and folded it to fit in my wallet. Smoke was wafting in from the living room, so I stayed low and moved toward the back door. Exiting the house and coming out in the back yard, I readjusted my bag and got a running start before throwing myself up and over the fence. My back leg caught on the fence and swung me down into the wooden planks before I reached up and released my leg. I landed wrong, cursing aloud, and was slow to get up, giving the infected time to notice me and start moving toward me.

  “C’mon, Eric. Get your shit together.” I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up, but I had torn up my leg on the fence, and I had to grit my teeth just to stay upright. My Sig was out and up in a second, and I shot the zombie closest to me, working my way toward the street. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but it seemed like the best idea at the time.

  Being as slow as the zombies, I probably looked pretty funny limping away and firing my pistol. In the movies, the people would always fire blindly behind them and waste precious ammunition, but I made every round that I fired count. The bastards would pay one bullet at a time.

  I almost limped right into a zombie before I threw myself to the side at the last second. It tried to jump on top of me, but I blew the back of its head open. Unfortunately, there was now a corpse pinning me to the ground with dead weight, and he hadn’t been a fan of exercise in life. My muscles strained as I tried to push the body off me, but I had trouble finding leverage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the group of infected getting closer, and knew I didn’t have much time.

  Suddenly a black Ford came screeching around the corner and skidded sideways into the group, pu
tting the vehicle between me and the zombies. Anthony jumped out and pulled the zombie’s arm, helping me up.

  “What would you do without me?” He laughed, putting my left arm over his shoulders so he could help me to the truck. I slid myself over to the passenger’s side, and Anthony hit the gas, driving off of Samantha’s lawn just before the fire exploded through the windows behind us.

  Chapter 38

  On the way to the police station, Anthony must have picked up on the fact that I was alone and offered his condolences with a simple, “I’m sorry, brother.” I just stared at the side view mirror, watching the flames engulf Samantha’s house until the scene faded from sight. Even then, we continued to drive in silence until we reached the station. Two men acted as lookouts on the roof of the two-story building, following us with scoped rifles on our approach until we got out and showed that we clearly weren’t infected.

  Anthony led me to the top floor where there was a meeting underway. Most of the desks had been stacked along the walls or pushed into the offices to create an open floor. The precinct captain stood at the front of the room before a white board, tapping on a massive map of the city as he spoke. I noticed streaks of blood on the floor in places and wondered how many casualties the cops had sustained before getting things in order.

  “We’ve managed to contact two other precincts, but the reports aren’t good. They relayed to us that the northern half of the city is overtaken, and that the infection seems to be working its way south. The rest of the precincts have yet to report in, but based on the way things look, we don’t expect to hear anything back. A riot squad was sent to City Hall to try and escort the mayor out, but we haven’t gotten word in almost an hour.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath on that riot squad, Captain,” Anthony blurted over the crowd. All eyes in the room turned to face the two men standing at the back of the room, some wearing disgusted expressions upon seeing me covered in blood. “We passed City Hall on our way over here, and it wasn’t pretty. If I were you, I’d limit any plans to the people in this room.”

  “And who might you be?” The crowd split in the middle so Anthony could move closer.

  “Sergeant Anthony Burke, Special Forces, sir. And while I respect your position, we need to act fast before—”

  “Sergeant, I have men and women out there, and I simply won’t give up on them based on the possibility of them being dead. No offense.” The captain turned back to the rest of the crowd and continued his speech. “Now, we need to send a patrol to City Hall and assess the situation. Detective Gilbert, get your—”

  “Captain, if you send anyone to City Hall they’re as good as dead!” I yelled, the frustration of the day beginning to break through my patience. I stomped forward and pointed to the thumbtacks across the map of downtown Chicago. “You need to call back anyone in the field on some bullshit mission and form a tight perimeter around this building now, or pretty soon there won’t be anyone left to call back! And you need to act fast, because things are falling apart out there, and if we don’t do something now there won’t be a city to save. Give everyone in this room a gun, and we have to move.”

  “Son, with all due respect, I understand you and your friend are from the military and that you’re probably used to losing men in combat, but I’m just not prepared to write off the people I’ve got out there.” His phrasing caught me off guard and before I lunged across the room and beat him to death I forced myself to walk away.

  “Anthony, that guy is gonna get everyone in here killed. We should just leave.” I left the room, but stopped at the first step of the stairwell and sat down. Behind me, I overheard the rest of the one-sided conversation as Anthony defended me.

  “Look, asshole, I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but I guess you haven’t been outside recently or something, because if you had you’d obviously know the situation is bad. And as for my friend, he just lost his wife and son, so you’ve got a lot of balls talking about loss.” I could just hear Anthony’s anger rising as he yelled. “But you know what, he’s also right. If you’re so stupid that you won’t listen to a damn word we’re saying, then you can go fuck yourself, Captain. Maybe you deserve to die which you will if you continue on that suicide mission to City Hall.”

  I heard Anthony’s footsteps coming toward me before the captain spoke up.

  “Sergeant Burke, please come back. I…I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t something I’ve dealt with before.”

  “You and me both, old man. Unfortunately, I’m not the guy you want.” Anthony must have known I wasn’t far, because the captain joined me on the stairwell moments later.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you, son. I’m just trying to hold everything together. I’ve already lost two patrols and a riot squad today; more men than I’ve lost my whole career. I need your help.” The look in the captain’s eyes was apologetic, and I knew everyone including me and Anthony would die if we didn’t do something.

  “It’s just one of those days, Captain,” I muttered, pushing off of one knee and getting up. “We need to come up with a plan.”

  ***

  We boxed off the precinct, sending patrols to each of the four surrounding buildings. I made sure every patrol was armed with at least one weapon for each member, as well as enough ammunition to last two days of constant fire. I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but the truth was we were severely outnumbered, and I didn’t want anyone to be screwed if the other buildings fell to the zombies.

  It had been messy to set up the “nests,” but that way we could cover each other with overlapping fields of fire and report in any movement. Captain Murray, as I found out, managed to call back two extra patrols, but the rest were lost to the infected or out of range. Anthony, Captain Murray, and I remained in the precinct and plotted hostile movements on the map as reports came in. A few days in, I noticed the zombies were gathering together in hordes, but there was little to do offensively unless we could contact outside help.

  The following week was a mixture of reports, plotting, studying, and brief encounters with the infected, but at the end of that first week the zombies really started to put my planning to the test. By the end of the month, the infected hordes were centralizing closer to our location, and after several months any hopes of holding out were shattered. The east patrol reported a massive horde approaching before the staccato of gunfire blasted over the radio. I ran to the windows and looked out, trying to make out the attack in the dim lighting of twilight. The muzzle flashes illuminated the faint silhouettes for moments at a time, revealing a street filled with zombies slowly filing into the building.

  I used the butt of my rifle to smash the glass of the window, and Anthony joined me to fire at the few targets we could make out, but there were hundreds, and too many had already made it inside. A bloodcurdling scream echoed from the second floor of the building, and I saw brief flashes of gunfire through the tinted glass as one policeman fell back to the roof, as was my plan. Snatching up my radio, I cued Captain Murray on the roof and watched as the rope connecting our buildings went taut.

  The officer crashed backward through the emergency door on the rooftop across from us, but caught himself and jogged to the side of the roof, slinging his shotgun and grabbing the rope with both hands before flipping upside down and crawling across the gap like a monkey. In that week, I had learned how sound attracted the infected, so I silenced any ideas of yelling at him not to look down. Back on the rooftop, another officer came through the doors but was immediately pulled back and devoured by a dozen swarming hands. It was almost as if the zombies formed a mob once they discovered prey. The zombies funneled out onto the roof and stalked toward the officer.

  I watched in horror as an infected businessman walked off of the roof, landing the three stories below on the sidewalk, and splitting the dawn quiet once more with the sounds of bones snapping. In sickening fashion, the man proceeded to extend a broken arm and try to pull himself back inside. Realizing how the s
cene was affecting me, my eyes shot back to the officer who was halfway across the line.

  The policeman was doing fine, but I could tell he was getting nervous, and his muscles were clenching. A zombie fell and landed briefly across the rope before sliding off to the ground below, but the line jerked and the policeman’s grip loosened as he tried to hug his body against the rope. Unfortunately, more zombies followed, and the rope continued to snap back and forth over the street below. The officer hung on for his life, but his legs slipped, and he clung to the rope with only his hands. A moment of suspense rolled in slow motion as another zombie approached the ledge and fell forward, snagging the line and sending both it and the police officer falling to the street below.

  I cursed myself for praying the man had died on impact, but saw the man’s head move frantically seconds after he landed. The pale white of bone jutted out from his right knee, and I brought up my rifle up, firing at the infected closest to him. I shifted my aim to prevent the officer’s suffering, but the horde converged on the fallen officer, ripping and tearing into his flesh in a grisly sequence of images that failed to cover the cry of pain emitted by the man before his throat was torn out, and the cry filled with an all-too-familiar gurgle of blood.

  “Dammit!” I yelled, smacking my hand against the glass. Anthony just looked over at me, patiently waiting for an order. He knew I was retired, but my best friend still looked to me as his commanding officer. I exhaled long and hard to try and calm myself before reaching up and flicking on the radio. “East building is down. Repeat, East Building is down. Everyone go to lockdown until daylight when we can see these bastards. Starting with the south building, convene on the precinct, and we’ll head down to the garage. We’re getting the hell out of here tomorrow.” Or we’ll die trying, I added to myself.

  Chapter 39

  None of us could sleep, despite our exhaustion, so we stood at the windows and watched the sun slowly edge over the horizon. The light illuminated the horrors of the previous night, revealing the dried pool of blood around the barely recognizable remains of the officer on the ground below. I stared at the scene for a while, etching the image into my mind. While I knew it would haunt me, I would make sure the officer was remembered.