I rush past this man, even slightly bumping him and dash towards the office.
“My son fell down the stairs. He’s alive but he needs medical attention,” I announce with a jittering voice. The female soldier behind the desk nods and gets on the radio.
The strange man enters the lobby area loudly.
“And I need to report a possible Infected,” I added, pointing to him.
Immediately, two other personnel burst out of the office area and seize him.
An old Suburban now acting as an ambulance arrives for Evan. He is carefully loaded into the back, and I squeeze in beside him. So many worries swim through my mind as we head to the hospital. A broken bone will slow him down. A zing spinal injury could be a death sentence in our new world.
A long string of various examinations from the doctor revealed that nothing is broken or out of place. Yet he is awful bruised and the staff is not ruling out a concussion.
“He’ll be good to walk, but we want to keep him overnight and watch for any other injuries. The bed next to him is empty and you can stay with him if you’d like,” the doctor stated.
I nod and thank her.
I sit with Evan for a while. He is bummed about missing the movie tonight, yet enjoys the brownie.
“I have to go tell your dad,” I inform him, “but I’ll be back later and bring a book for you and some games to play, alright?”
Evan nods, but the apprehension is heavy in his big brown eyes.
When the plague started turning the dead into vicious attackers, Evan slept with us in our room every night in the old house. Even shortly after moving onto post, I was nervous about him sleeping in his own room. I often stood in his doorway, watching him sleep until Liam coaxed me to bed.
But now, Evan is safe and not seriously injured inside the hospital with armed guards patrolling. I have to take food home, tell Liam of Evan’s incident, and bring him new clothes. Life is now that simple.
I walk down the hallway, the canned fruit gently clunking in the bag. I stop shortly, watching with blank eyes as a nurse and doctor lift the white t-shirt off the strange man’s back and examine the red, open wounds. A soldier stands ready to intervene in the corner. What happens to him, I do not care.
All empathy is gone from this zombie apocalypse girl. All that matters is Evan and Liam, and my survival to contribute to their well-being. I am only a shell of what I used to be. Perhaps in the May Day World, I am no different than Them.
Last Supper
Ryan Neil Falcone
If I were a betting man, I’d have wagered that the three of us were good as dead. With two of us hobbled by injures, nowhere to take cover, and a horde of ravenous walkers nipping at our heels, the odds of survival seemed impossibly stacked against us—that is, until we came across Lester Coffey. If I’d known beforehand what would happen once we went inside his compound, I’d have taken my chances with the walkers.
My name is Adam Guillory. I was in Houston on a business trip with two coworkers from corporate headquarters when the blight began. Nobody knew what was making the dead come back to life or why they were compelled to consume the living—but within days the horrific situation prompted the government to declare martial law. With the city on armed lock down, air travel grounded, and the army blockading all roads going into and out of Houston, we had no way to leave.
The vice-president of our Houston branch suggested that we hunker down at the office until the military restored order. Our building was a shining glass tower located near the center of downtown—our 20th floor office providing a perfect vantage point for us to observe the insanity below. We watched in horror as people in the streets were attacked by the walking dead or gunned down by soldiers trying to prevent them from leaving the quarantined zone.
These shocking circumstances didn’t stop our panic stricken coworkers from venturing out in droves to get to their families. By evening, Anthony, Ron and I were the only ones left at the office. Staying put seemed prudent…and besides, we didn’t have anywhere else to go. Television reports from around the globe delivered the shocking news that the epidemic had become a cataclysm of global proportions. Within days, the collapse of society as we knew it seemed imminent—as impossible as that was to fathom.
Even the military, hopelessly outnumbered by the walkers, were unable to contain the scourge. We watched helplessly when the army pulled out of Houston, abandoning the city. By that time, telephones were no longer working; even our cell phones were dead. It wasn’t long before television and radio broadcasts went dark as well.
The sobering realization that rescue wasn’t forthcoming forced the three of us to rethink our options. A quick inventory of the office pantry confirmed that our food supplies were dwindling; there were enough abandoned bagged lunches, crackers, and vending machine snacks to last for a few more days…maybe longer if we rationed. We could stay put and eventually starve to death, or we could leave the safety of our barricaded office and try to escape a city overrun by the walking dead on foot. Both options seemed like losing propositions.
After some discussion, we decided to take our chances, gambling that there’d be fewer walkers to deal with once we were out of the city. From there, we would try to find other survivors and get to a safe zone where we might find protection from the zombie scourge. We gathered all of the non-perishable food we could carry, loaded these supplies into backpacks we’d scavenged from the office, armed ourselves with makeshift clubs fashioned from broken office furniture, and headed out onto the treacherous streets.
We encountered our first walker at the bottom of the emergency stairwell. The badly decomposing corpse appeared to be an unfortunate businesswoman who must have gotten stuck in the locked stairwell while trying to exit the building. Her body swayed unsteadily as she lurched up the stairs towards us, gnashing her teeth. It took all three of us to put her down, and it wasn’t until after we’d bashed in her skull with our homemade cudgels that she finally stopped moving. Afterwards, my hands trembled while I stared at the corpse, grimly reflecting on the fact that I’d never “killed” anything before. Rationalizing that the woman was already dead offered no consolation.
Our departure from Houston proper was exceedingly slow. The carnage and devastation in the streets was shocking in magnitude, and because the city was swarming with walkers we couldn’t risk being out in the open for very long. The three of us skulked from building to building, hoping to avoid being seen as we slowly wove our way through city streets that were eerily devoid of living human activity.
Despite our most deliberate precautions, it was impossible to avoid the walkers entirely. Several times, we were forced to flee after being spotted—barricading ourselves inside empty buildings to avoid being attacked. We spent hours hiding in silence, waiting for the walkers to disperse before we could safely continue our journey.
After several days of being trapped in this surreal, perpetual nightmare, I became anesthetized to the horror. My squeamishness about killing dropped away when I stopped thinking of the walkers as people. Instead, they were dangerous, rabid animals that needed to be put down to ensure our survival. It was either us or them.
Step by step, building by building, we inched our way closer toward the city limits. The walkers were everywhere—trundling aimlessly through the streets, trapped inside of stationary cars, sometimes even lurking inside abandoned buildings—always on the prowl for fresh meat to consume. We couldn’t afford to drop our guard; we had to be patient.
By our fifth night on the move, we were nearly out of downtown. We took shelter in the lobby of an abandoned skyscraper that had once been Enron’s headquarters. Ron distributed a few packets of saltines from our supply bag and we munched in silence, ravenously devouring this stale, woefully inadequate meal.
I lay down and tried not to think about how hungry I was. Nearby, Ron busied himself inventorying our remaining food while Anthony went to search the offices upstairs for additional supplies to scavenge. I had just beg
un to drift off to sleep when all hell broke loose.
My dream of being seated at a table overflowing with food was interrupted by shouts coming from inside the building. I instinctively leapt to my feet and tried to locate the source of the commotion. Still dazed from being startled awake, it took me a moment to piece together what was happening: Anthony must have inadvertently come across walkers who’d been locked inside one of the offices. He fled down the stairwell, pursued by the shambling horrors as he shouted out a warning to us.
He burst into the lobby at full speed, and we ran toward the barricaded front doors, knowing that we had to get out of there before the walkers got to the lobby. But as we approached the doors, we screeched to a halt when we saw what was outside: dozens of walkers…wandering aimlessly in front of the building. Going through those doors would be suicide.
“The bathrooms,” Ron bellowed, hitching his thumb toward the lavatories located on the opposite side of the lobby. Our sneakers squeaked on the marble floor as we fled across the lobby, reaching the men’s room just as the first walker who’d been chasing Anthony appeared at the bottom of the stairwell. I knew from previous trips to the latrine that there was a window in the bathroom. Our best chance of escape was to get through that window before the zombies inside the building got into the bathroom. Of course, if there were walkers outside that window like there were out front…
We’d cross that bridge when we came to it; there was no time for a Plan B.
We burst through the door leading into the bathroom, and Anthony threw himself against door to close it, bracing himself against the mass of rotting flesh that began to push on the other side. “Get that window open,” he snarled at us as fists began to pound on the bathroom door.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I picked up a metal trash can and hurled it through the window. The sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the restroom, but it wasn’t loud enough to block out the horrible sound of the walkers trying to force their way into the bathroom; Anthony wouldn’t be able to hold them off for long.
I scrambled through the window as quickly as I could, ignoring the jagged shards of glass still embedded in the frame as I squeezed myself through the shattered pane and dropping the short distance to the ground below. I struck the pavement hard, but rolled to my feet preparing to run if any walkers appeared. Much to my relief, none were in sight.
Ron tossed the packs out to me before pulling his more ample frame through the opening. Before letting himself drop, he shouted for Anthony to run for it. I caught Ron as he fell, knowing that it would be a race against time for our friend. A wave of relief flooded through me when Anthony began to climb through the window frame, but before he could escape, one of the walkers inside the bathroom seized his legs.
Anthony began to thrash, howling as he tried to wrench himself free. Dropping our packs, Ron and I rushed forward and each seized one of his arms, shouting instructions in unison as we engaged in a desperate game of tug-of-war for our friend’s life. The split second before we yanked him through the window, Anthony cried out in pain when one of the walkers bit through his shoe. The three of us tumbled to the ground in a heap but were on our feet moments later, snatching our packs off the ground as we sprinted across the parking lot to get away.
Throwing caution to the wind, we fled downtown, pausing only when we were safely hidden inside a backyard shed on the outskirts of town. It didn’t afford much protection, but it was better than being out in the open. Foot smarting, Anthony collapsed to the floor and removed his shoe. He grimaced in pain when Ron examined the bite, but the wound didn’t appear to be that bad.
We’d gotten lucky…or so we believed.
We hotwired an abandoned car but had to abandon it only a few miles outside of town after discovering that Interstate 45 was too congested with derelict cars to drive on. Reluctantly, we headed toward open country on foot, the abandoned city shrinking from view behind us as we left it behind.
Ron suggested that we head northwest and drift into Colorado, theorizing that there was likely to be fewer walkers in the higher elevations of mountain country. We decided that it would be best to avoid cities while we traveled, for fear they’d be swarming with walking dead like Houston had been.
We trudged along for several days without incident, making good progress in spite of the oppressive summer humidity…that is, until Anthony began to wear down. The wound he’d sustained didn’t seem to be healing—not surprising, given how we’d been walking non-stop for days. The fact that he’d only been able to wash the wound once using some unsanitary water we’d found in the sink of a deserted roadside diner didn’t help matters either. Despite how feverish he looked, Anthony assured us that he was fine, but his worsening limp suggested that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.
Two days later, Anthony couldn’t walk anymore. We’d taken shelter inside an abandoned bus depot, starting a fire to keep Anthony as comfortable as possible. He’d drifted in and out of lucidity, shivering uncontrollably as his feverish body radiated waves of heat. When he’d slipped into unconsciousness, we’d examined the festering wound; the stench emanating from the fetid lesion was overpowering. Ron pointed out several ugly red lines spreading up his leg. “Infection,” Ron noted grimly. “If it spreads to his heart, he’s a goner.”
Neither of us wanted to be the one who brought up the horrible possibility of leaving our friend behind. Even though I knew that bringing Anthony with us would only slow us down, I couldn’t help but get angry with Ron when he eventually broached the subject. Despite my better judgment, I argued bitterly against the idea, and Ron eventually relented.
We found a wheelchair in the bus depot, and set off the next morning taking turns pushing our debilitated friend in front of us. There was no question that Anthony had become a burden. Although the wheelchair was collapsible and light weight, it didn’t roll easily over rocky terrain. So when our path eventually intersected with Route 6, we decided to follow it west, rationalizing that being able to roll the wheelchair on asphalt outweighed the increased risk of running into walkers on the main road.
Anthony’s condition seemed to worsen by the hour. We were expending a lot of calories pushing the wheelchair, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort. Neither of us spoke while resting by the campfire that night, the unspoken topic looming ominously in the silence between us. Eventually, Ron busied himself taking inventory of our remaining provisions. I could tell from the deflated look on his face that we were nearly out of food.
Our luck took a turn for the worse when we came across an accident scene yesterday afternoon while traveling along an elevated section of Route 6. We tried to go around the tangled mess of vehicles by moving to the furthest portion of the median, but when we passed the twisted wreckage of a school bus, we discovered that there were walkers trapped inside.
The zombies became frenzied, attempting to claw their way out of the bus to get at us. We hurried past, knowing that if we put enough distance between ourselves and the bus, we’d be out of sight before they broke free, but we’d only made it a short distance down the road when the sound of breaking glass reached our ears.
I looked back, seeing a dozen walkers lurching toward us, their forms distorted by the shimmering heat rising from the asphalt. We needed to get off the road and find cover—fast. We ran down the next exit ramp, passing underneath an overhead road sign that informed us we were traveling in the direction of Waco. We began to pick up speed as the exit ramp banked downward, but before the road leveled out, we came across another cluster of crashed vehicles, blocking our path. We slowed down, reluctant to approach the wreckage. If there were walkers down there, we’d be boxed in.
Our only option was to go over the side and jump to the ground—and we had to act fast. Ron lifted Anthony out of the chair, which I tossed over the guardrail. I quickly lowered myself over the side, hanging down before dropping the remaining six feet to the ground. Ron dangled our comatose friend over the s
ide, lowering him as far as he could toward my outstretched hands. Even from below, I could hear the walkers approaching.
“Grab hold of him,” Ron barked. “They’re almost here!”
My fingers had no sooner touched Anthony’s feet when Ron let go, dropping him on top of me, the air whooshing painfully out of my lungs when I took the brunt of the fall. I shoved Anthony aside and looked up in time to see Ron hurdle the guardrail above. He landed awkwardly, letting out a howl of pain as one leg bent unnaturally beneath him. I ran to him, and was startled to see that his knee has already ballooned to the size of a grapefruit.
“Can you walk?” I asked, knowing that we had only seconds to act before the walkers found their way down the embankment.
“I’ll manage,” Ron grimaced, his face ashen. “Get the wheelchair!”
I scrambled toward where I’d thrown the wheelchair, hands shaking as I struggled to lock it into the unfolded position. I cringed noticing that one of the wheels was damaged from the fall. I bent to lift Anthony, feeling each of the fifty pounds he outweighed me by in my back when I hauled him into the chair. Ignoring the painful twinge, I helped Ron to his feet, allowing him to lean heavily against the wheelchair as we set off across the barren terrain, leaving the highway behind.
As if the landscape itself wasn’t enough of an impediment, the wheelchair was much harder to roll now that it had a bent wheel. Ron’s injury slowed us down even more, and when I glanced backwards to see if we’d gotten away, I spotted three walkers following us in the distance.
Anxiety rippled through my over-stimulated nerves. The biggest advantage we had over the walkers—speed—had gone away. And with Ron barely able to stand, I was the only one fit enough to push the wheelchair. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to maintain this pace long; I was already exhausted. Unlike us, walkers never tired or slowed down, so it would only be a matter of time before they overtook us. Unless we ditched them somehow or found somewhere to take cover, we were just delaying the inevitable.
Undead War (Dead Guns Press) Page 10