Killer Z

by Miller, Greg L.

  The crazed man gains his feet and groans. He fixates on Mary and lunges. Larry fumbles with his gun.

  “Help,” Mary shrieks.

  The man flings her to the concrete. Mary wails and bashes at his head as he tears into her neck and chest. Pixel sinks her teeth into the attacker’s leg, snarling.

  “Get off of her, piss ant!” Larry yells.

  The cop wraps his arms around the assailant’s neck and tears the man from the shrieking Brit. Arterial blood sprays into the air as her ravaged neck is exposed. Her eyes roll backwards. Larry steps back and points his gun.

  “Fuck you,” he curses, thinking the crazed man must be a junkie high on PCP.

  The 9mm recoils slightly with a pop as he shoots the man in the chest. His shot is followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. A high caliber bullet whizzes inches from Larry’s ear and obliterates the man’s head.

  He stands in stunned silence as several military soldiers approach from the left. The soldiers wear full biohazard gear and carry assault rifles. People in the crowd openly stare while others ignore what’s happening.

  “Always aim for the head,” a soldier matter-of-factly says and shoots Mary in the head with a crack.

  “Hey!” Larry yells, shocked.

  The soldiers take out two black body bags and collect the man and Mary.

  “Did you see that? He was eating Mary,” Mark stutters.

  “Why did they shoot her?” Rebecca gasps.

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” Michael stammers.

  Larry stares at the blood stained concrete as they take the body bags away.

  “We were going to have sex…” Larry whines.

  “Are you serious?” Rebecca gasps.

  “Rebecca!” Michael says.

  Pixel looks at Larry with confused brown eyes.

  “I’ve seen addicts go crazy before,” Susan says.

  “Yeah, like those Killer Z junkies we filmed yesterday,” Barry says.

  “Killer Z?” Mark asks.

  “A new drug on the streets,” Barry says.

  “They can catch it on the six o’clock news,” Susan interrupts.

  “I’m hearing the lower levels are flooded in the station,” Michael says. “How are we going to get out of the city?”

  “We have a news bus,” Barry volunteers.

  “They can’t come with us,” Susan says.

  “Look, they have families,” Barry counters.

  “Ok, fine. We’ll play disaster taxi,” Susan says at length. “It’ll make a great chapter in my memoir.”

  They walk a block away from the station when Pixel barks and races ahead.

  “Come back stupid mutt,” Larry bellows.

  The canine digs at a pile of rubble burying the entrance of a Burger Baron restaurant. The national guards are waiting for orders across the street.

  “Maybe people are trapped inside?” Rebecca asks.

  “What can we possibly do for them?” Michael asks.

  While they discuss what to do Chuang walks to the pile of rubble and starts moving lose bricks one at a time. The others look sheepishly at one another. Barry puts down his camera and joins Chuang.

  “Fuck this shit,” Larry mutters and walks across the street.

  “Maybe the National Guard can help,” Rebecca says as she points to a National Guard truck parked down the street. “I’ll be right back.”

  After a few minutes of intense talking and pointing, Rebecca convinces the soldiers to help remove the rubble. Larry watches from across the street and snorts. He wants a drink, badly. As the group works to free those trapped inside he wanders off.

  12

  A chunk of ceiling clanks onto the table and Juliet cringes. Heavy dust hangs in the air. Soft coughing carries through the darkness. The aftershocks have diminished to an occasional low tremor. No one in the restaurant can move the rubble blocking the door.

  “When are they going to get us out of here,” Juliet mutters.

  Her muscles ache from hiding underneath the table.

  “It could be worse,” Harry replies from her left.

  “How could this get worse?” Sara asks to her right. The girl presses buttons on her cell phone. “This sucks monkey balls.”

  “Monkey balls?” Rodger asks from the next table.

  “Ugh, you’re so ancient,” Sara retorts.

  “Don’t worry about it, Rodger,” Juliet says.

  “Oh I get it. My muscles are cramping under here,” Rodger says.

  “I want to go home,” Sara cries.

  “It feels like a sauna in here,” Juliet says and wipes sweat from her brow.

  Juliet hits the send button on her cell phone again and again but nothing happens.

  “How’d you lose your arm?” Juliet asks Harry, needing a distraction.

  “I lost it in Korea when I jerry rigged a stick of dynamite to a RPG and a soviet tank.”

  “Doesn’t that make you near 80?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Did it suck like this? In Korea, I mean?”

  “Oh, it was much worse.”

  Sara sighs, “Yeah, right.”

  “It was ’49,” Harry continues. “The Korean Peninsula was run by the Japs and had a heavy soviet influence. In ‘45 the allied powers divided the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel, but the Forgotten War, my war, did not officially start until 1950. Lost my hand at the 38th parallel actually,” he pauses, flexing his remaining hand.

  “The northern territory had soviet troops,” Harry says. “I was stationed in the South, but it isn’t like what you see in the movies. We attacked each other like pirates. The politicians called it ‘skirmishes’.”

  “Is that when you lost your hand?”

  “No, that came later.”

  “Why’d they send you to Korea?”

  “I enlisted to fight the evil communists. I lied about my age and joined the service at seventeen. My mom cried at the bus station. It was the last time I saw her. She had a heart attack while I was stationed in Seoul.”

  “That sucks.”

  “My unit was ordered to sabotage free elections by undermining the local insurgents.”

  “Like the CIA?”

  “Not really. We hid in foxholes in the poppy fields. Someone thought free elections weren’t possible as long as communists fed their ideology to rural villages. The only way to stop them was through good old fashioned cloak and dagger espionage.”

  “Cool.”

  “Our barracks weren’t much different from sitting under these tables. They were made of mud and bamboo and always fell apart. Koreans back then didn’t have plumbing like we do. We had honey wagons that collected our shit. I had to sit in the same rice fields they fertilized with our shit.”

  She wrinkles her nose at the thought of being surrounded by human feces.

  “The war was hard on us. We lost over 40,000 guys. One of my duties was to collect US soldiers who committed suicide after jumping from a big bridge in Seoul. Within hours the fish ate their faces and it was my job to identify the corpses.”

  “Gross. Wait a minute, Harry. I have to use the restroom, or at least what’s left of it.”

  “I need to go too,” Sara says. “What if those men try something again?”

  “They won’t do anything with everyone watching,” Harry says.

  Juliet stands stiffly and notes Seth and Andrew hiding underneath a far table. She moves cautiously down the hallway then stops. The dead bodies are gone.

  “Calm down, girl,” Juliet mutters as her lower lip trembles. “Please tell me Harry moved the bodies?”

  Sara shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess so, where else would they be?”

  Chiding herself for acting like a chicken shit, Juliet peeks inside the woman’s restroom. The stalls are collapsed on themselves.

  “Never mind, I don’t have to go that bad,” Sara says, realizing they have to use the men’s room. “I’ll just wait in the hallway. I can’t go back in there.”


  “I understand. Just give me a minute.”

  Inside the men’s bathroom the doors on both stalls are shut. The first door doesn’t give but the second opens with ease. She places her flashlight on top of the toilet paper dispenser and unzips her pants. A slight aftershock shakes the building and her light falls to the floor. Her heart freezes as she sees Dawn’s pink sneakers shuffle in the adjoining stall. She zips her pants.

  “Is somebody there? Dawn?”

  The silence is unnerving. Juliet knows Dawn is dead and wonders if one of the homeless took her shoes. She snags the flashlight from the floor and cautiously opens the stall door. The second stall swings open and a something grabs the side of her stall. She forgets to breathe as her knees weaken. The flashlight illuminates a charred blistering hand with a high school class ring.

  “Help me!”

  The main door opens and Sara peers inside. “Did you say something?”

  Dawn’s face is a twisted distortion of burnt and melted flesh. Burned hair hugs her half bald head.

  “I thought you were dead,” Juliet croaks.

  Dawn’s milky white eyes bore into Juliet and she freezes. The burned girl groans and lunges. Juliet back pedals and kicks the stall door shut. Dawn claws at the stall.

  “No fucking way!” Sara shrieks from the doorway.

  Juliet falls on the toilet seat and yells, “Get help!”

  Dawn stops scratching the stall and redirects her attention to Sara. The screaming girl is yanked into the restroom. A heavy thud is followed by wet suckling.

  “Harry!” Juliet screams.

  The restroom door bangs against the wall.

  “Juliet?” Harry yells.

  Juliet steels her resolve and opens the stall door.

  “Hey!” Harry yells at Dawn. “Get away from her!”

  In a corner Dawn huddles over Sara. Juliet rushes to Harry and the vet shoves her into the hallway. Dawn lifts her gore covered face and groans. She leaps to her feet and lunges at Harry. He side steps and slams her into the sink.

  “Calm down!” Harry says as Dawn thrashes in his grip. “Juliet, get Rodger.”

  Juliet runs to the lobby and screams, “Rodger!”

  Inhuman groaning comes from both the lobby and kitchen. Harry loses his grip on the crazed woman and runs out of the restroom with Dawn on his heels. Rodger stumbles into the hallway from the lobby. Dawn groans and grabs his arm.

  “Let me go!” Rodger screams.

  Dawn buries her teeth into Rodger’s arm and he yells in pain. People scramble up from under the tables. Harry grabs the girl’s shoulders, but she’s too strong. He releases her, grabs onto a chair leg, and swings it at her head. The metal leg whistles through the air and hits Dawn at the base of the neck.

  Screams fill the lobby as Sara stumbles out of the hallway with intestines hanging from a ravaged midsection. She groans and shambles into the lobby. Without pausing she pounces on Jake.

  “What the hell?” Andrew yells as another grotesque figure emerges from the kitchen.

  “They’re infected!” Seth yells.

  “Infected?” Andrew asks. “They look like fucking zombies.”

  “With Killer Z, I’ll explain later,” Seth says.

  The chemist emerges from the darkened corner with a metal pipe and bashes the zombie’s head. Jake hits the floor with Sara tearing out chunks of his chest with gore covered teeth.

  “Killer Z? What the fuck man?” Andrew sputters.

  The remaining three college kids hammer Sara with fists but the ravenous girl continues to eat Jake. Juliet understands why Andrew calls them zombies. They look and act like the undead. Rodger’s hand seizes Juliet’s calf. She jerks back and something rushes past her. Seth brings the metal pipe down on Rodger’s head with a sickening thud. Juliet blinks as suddenly the carnage is illuminated by streaks of sunlight. The sound of people working to move the rubble streams in with the light. A megaphone enhanced voice echoes through the restaurant.

  “This is the National Guard. Please remain calm while we get you out. You’re safe.”

  13

  Fred and Kyle walk carefully down the center of Constitution Avenue. They work their way around torn asphalt, burst fire hydrants, and panicked, disorientated people. An evacuation route sign disappears as a building topples over. A sea of survivors pushes them to the gates of the White House.

  Military personnel keep the crowd off of the presidential grounds. Soldiers looking like mercenaries man the front gates with local cops. The broad lawns surrounding the Washington Monument and White House are submerged in water. The tip of the Washington Monument topples.

  “The great dildo in the sky lost its head,” Kyle says.

  Fred feels disgust for his son’s lack of respect. The crowd’s movement stops near the gates of the White House. The black cast iron fence leading to the main drive sits at an odd angle. Majority of the lamps adorning the gate are missing. Even at a distance the damage to the White House looks severe. Its regal veranda sits at an angle with several of the timeless columns missing.

  “Never thought I’d see the day…”Fred muses and takes out a cigarette. He never thought much of government but does have a patriot’s heart.

  The crowd mumbles the president is dead. A few ask the soldiers and police officers for information. Others outright demand it. Kyle grips the strap of the backpack tightly. A limousine with presidential flags idles near the front entrance of the White House and on the front the lawn are several helicopters. Staff workers and officials rush from a side entrance.

  Fred needs to know if the leader of the free world is still at the helm. The longer the soldiers remain silent the more restless the crowd becomes.

  Amongst those rushing from the White House are the president’s wife and daughter. The first lady’s head is bowed. She’s flanked by two smartly dressed men. The scene is repeated with the president’s daughter. Behind them four soldiers carry a black body bag. As the body bag passes, both soldiers and officials stand sharply and salute. The president’s family disappears into a helicopter and the crowd goes crazy.

  A senator runs out of the White House and enters the idling limousine. The luxurious car pauses as the front gate starts to open. Hundreds rush to the opening gates but are stopped when another deep tremor shakes the ground. Erupting asphalt lifts the front of the limousine into the air. The rear tires spin without gripping the road.

  Soldiers push back the mob surrounding the limo. The senator is pulled from the sun roof and the car abandoned.

  An amplified voice blares through the cacophony, “Repent before it’s too late. The president is dead! God is coming to reclaim what is rightfully his!”

  Fred sees a man in ragged clothes shouting into the bullhorn. A chunk of concrete sails through the air and hits the doomsayer on the temple. The bullhorn doesn’t reach the street before someone else snatches it.

  “DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!”

  The mob turns on the announcer like a pack of wild dogs. The speaker disappears in a storm of punches and kicks.

  A young woman with dirty blond dreadlocks shouts into the bullhorn, “Stop this insanity! We need order!”

  A military man booms, “Cease and disperse! This is an executive order. Proceed to the nearest evacuation center and await further information. I repeat. Cease and disperse.”

  “Where is the vice president?” the woman with the bullhorn shrills.

  The crowd is deafening as the soldier answers, “Cease and disperse immediately. You must evacuate the city.”

  “No,” the woman shouts. “We have rights and demand information!”

  “Marshall Law has been declared. Cease and disperse or we will open fire.”

  “You’re supposed to help us!” the woman yells.

  Rubber bullets rain into the crowd. A rubber bullet smacks into Fred’s left shoulder. His breath is knocked out as searing hot pain shoots down his arm.

  “Jesus, please stop this madness,” Fred prays.
r />   The bullhorn lands at his feet.

  Fred picks it up and says the only thing coming to mind, “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wide man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that glorieth in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.”

  Kyle snorts as the mob goes quiet. Everyone stands dumfounded and looking at Fred.

  “Cease fire!” a soldier orders.

  The soldiers stop firing but remain ready. Everyone looks at Fred.

  “I’m scared,” he says into the bullhorn. “We’re all scared. Let’s stop fighting, ok?”

  The soldiers lower their guns, looking toward their commander.

  “Look folks, the man is right. You need to stop fighting and go to the evacuation centers. There will be help for you there.”

  Grumblings and murmurs drift through the crowd as people slowly start to gather themselves and walk away.

  Kyle lays a hand on his dad’s shoulder and says, “Let’s go, Dad.”

  Fred drops the bullhorn with shaking hands and takes out a cigarette.

  “Kyle, I’ve had enough of this city. Where’s the hospital?”

  The pain in his shoulder has lessened to a throb. It takes him a few attempts to light the cigarette.

  “Screw the hospital. A tsunami is coming. We need to leave the city.”

  “Not without my grandson.”

  14

  Larry’s head swims with disorientation and booze. The tile under his cheek feels cool. He doesn’t remember passing out. The last thing he recalls is breaking into a liquor store and having a drink. Someone sings the hook of an old R.E.M song about the end of the world. His right hand throbs and is wrapped in a bandage. Pixel sits obediently near him.