by Frank Martin
Although Chris wanted to stop kicking and talk to the girl, he had to speak while continuing to fight off the limbs reaching through the doorway. “But you won’t have time to make it back.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
“What?”
Nellie quickly interrupted the brewing conversation to cut it off before it began. “If she’s going to go she has to go now.”
Stephanie squatted, ready to propel herself forward, but kept her gaze in Chris’s direction. He paused his defenses to look at her for the briefest moment. And in that short second, she could tell how badly he wanted to discuss options with her. To formulate some sort of plan to save her.
There just wasn’t enough time, though. All they had was a single instant to make a decision. So with a quick nod of his head, Chris told Stephanie all he was able to.
And the girl responded by shooting herself out into the zombie wall that barricaded the doorway.
Although her frame was small, Steph’s quick blast caught the crowd off guard. The zombies’ frail bodies tumbled over like bowling pins, and gave the girl just enough free space to pivot in the direction of the control booth.
In a dead sprint, Stephanie darted straight into the horde in front of her, fearlessly meeting them head on. At first, the mob gave way like it did when she exited the gondola. But there were too many to power through.
Eventually, Stephanie’s sprint got caught up in the zombie wall, slowing to nothing more than a single person working their way through a crowd of people. Only these people weren’t just in the way. The zombies’ grabbing hands and ravenous teeth pulled and snapped at the girl from every direction. Spikes of pain attacked her skin, each one trying to drag her down to the floor. More scratches and bites littered her bleeding body with every passing second, but that didn’t stop her from pressing forward.
In a combination of agility and power, Stephanie muscled her way through the moving sea of ghouls and freaks, never looking anywhere other than the booth in front of her. She swam her arms forward, using every ounce of her weight as leverage against the force pushing back against her. And despite the agony surging up and down her core, the determined girl chose to bite down hard into her lower lip rather than add her screams to the noise already coursing through the room.
With her body burning and covered in blood, Stephanie finally broke out into the free space of the control booth. Once inside, she stumbled forward onto the control panel and practically dropped right on top of the blinking red button marked as her target. Almost immediately, a bell rang out through the station followed by a series of loud clicks and shifting gears as the gondola once again began moving.
From her fatigued position against the control panel, Stephanie looked up to see that there weren’t nearly as many zombies surrounding the cab as when she left it. In her dramatic charge through the station, the girl managed to attract the attention of almost every hungry fiend on the floor. Her partners now had practically a clear shot out of the station and, in a few moments, would be on their descent down into Mountain Village.
It was a strange and awkward feeling of success for Stephanie. Mainly because she had never before in her life been so determined to accomplish a single goal. Over the course of one day, her life, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally, had been turned upside down and inside out. Truths had become falsehoods. And fears that she never knew she had become real. But with her family gone and nothing left to lose, she’d given herself to a cause. It didn’t matter if that cause was right. What mattered was that she believed in it and, for the first time since she could remember, felt pride in that fact.
It was a new emotion that caused Stephanie to smile for this bittersweet ending. A smile that remained even as the zombies dragged her to the floor and began devouring her body.
26
Anna awoke to the faint sound of grumbling from across the room. It barely stood out amongst the soft, continuous moaning that persisted outside the cabin. But she'd gotten so used to the zombies' death cry that it practically lulled her to sleep while waiting for the man in front of her to be cured.
She didn't know how long it'd been since she injected him (or how long she'd been asleep for that matter), but the quick rest gave Anna the jump-start she needed to see her patient's treatment to its end.
He passed out immediately after receiving the cure, which was to be expected. The compound was originally used as a sedative, after all. But a short time later the man started developing a fever, breaking out into a deep, cold sweat across his forehead.
At first, Anna feared that he was allergic to the medicine. Then she recalled that she hadn't observed how the cure worked on the test subject back at the school. Maybe the fever was a normal part of the process as it burned the sickness out of the body.
Whatever the case may have been, Dr. Morris knew her patient wasn't regaining consciousness anytime soon. She took a seat across the room, planning only to rest her eyes. But the tired woman fell asleep instead, and only recently woke up to the odd noise bubbling from the man's mouth.
He was starting to come to, and Anna cautiously approached him while listening intently to his muffled words. His eyes were still closed, so Dr. Morris just assumed he was dreaming. But the activity was a good sign that the cure was staving off whatever was in his system, at least for the time being.
She continued to move closer and stopped once she realized he was merely speaking the pointless gibberish old men occasionally ramble off in their sleep. Unsatisfied by his drivel, Anna was about ready to stand when she realized she wasn't quite looking at the same person as before.
The man's aged, wrinkly face had grown even rougher than it was earlier. His once sunburned, mountain skin became pale enough to make out a spider web of veins across his still sweaty cheeks and forehead. But most troubling of all was that despite appearing unconscious, his chest continued to rise and drop rapidly as if the man was panting from an all-out sprint.
Already crouching closely to examine his face, Anna curiously lifted her patient's hand to take a pulse. She found the arm to be dead weight, completely devoid of life as the man slept despite his rapidly pounding chest. Dr. Morris placed her fingers against his wrist and immediately felt a pulse jumping out at her.
She then looked over to the watch on her other arm but felt silly when it wasn't there. She must've forgotten to put it on before leaving her house for work.
This scattered brain revelation was followed by the man suddenly springing to life and latching his mouth firmly onto Anna’s other arm still placed against his neck.
Although she couldn't see them, the doctor could feel sharp teeth sinking deep into her flesh. Once secured, the man's jaw took its time digging towards the bone while a continuous stream of blood oozed past his lips.
The pain was enormous, but Anna didn't scream. The utter and complete surprise of the moment robbed the air right out of her lungs, preventing the doctor from uttering a sound. Instead, all Anna could do was stare in disbelief as the man chomped down harder and harder into her limb.
Eventually, the chunk of meat in his mouth satisfied the man enough for him to pull back and rip out a large section of his victim's arm. Blood poured from the gaping hole as Anna stumbled back in a near paralyzing state of shock. She continued to stare at the wound, and through the torn and shredded pieces of flesh, Anna could sporadically see straight through to the white of her bone.
Movement from the rejuvenated man then began to catch the doctor's attention. She shifted her gaze over to him and was speechless at the frenzied look glaring from his eyes. The man stood calmly and carefully in direct contrast with the expression of bloodthirsty rage on his face. The blood still smothering his mouth bubbled as the man hissed down at Anna like an animal sizing up its prey.
But even though a compounding terror shook her entire body, Anna still didn't scream. In fact, fear never even entered her thoughts. All she could wonder was what went wrong to create the monster that
stood before her. Why wasn't he cured? It should've worked. No. More than that. It was supposed to work. It had to. It was their last chance. Their only hope of salvation. And she was going to be the hero that rescued Telluride from the horror that tore it apart.
But not anymore. Her dreams of being the savior were over. And that was the only thing she could think about as the man lunged for her face.
***
When she first volunteered herself for this mission, Georgia didn't know how difficult it would be to get a workable signal through the building's tower. That didn't mean her decision to go was wrong. The others were most likely going to destroy the town one way or another, and TORO was their best bet to inform as many people as they could of the impending disaster. As the only station employee currently in the valley, getting it up and running fell solely on her shoulders. Unfortunately, it wasn't proving to be as easy as she hoped.
The control room where she now worked was still in disarray and the window separating it from the broadcast booth was still smashed to pieces from when Malcolm crashed through it. The repair of the station's equipment went smoothly enough, though. But now that they were finished, there was nothing for Molly to do but wait as Georgia tried to get the system up and running.
Through the small window on the door, Georgia could see the schoolteacher getting restless, pacing out in the quiet hallway. Molly wasn't an idiot, either. Although this wasn't her expertise, she knew it shouldn’t have taken this long. And the faster Georgia watched her walk back and forth, the more nervous she became that she wouldn't be able to finish the job.
The DJ forced her gaze back to the screen, but her eyes struggled to focus on the work. The nerves churning inside Georgia's stomach were starting to get to her. And for the first time since she sat in front of the computer, the tired girl realized there was a strong possibility that she wouldn't be able to get the job done, which in turn made it harder to concentrate.
The affair turned into a perpetuating cycle of frustration and self-doubt. A downward spiral that she only snapped out of when the sound of the door swinging open grabbed her attention.
Molly entered the room along with an aura of anxious energy. "Making progress?"
Georgia continued to stare at the screen, though, trying her best to refrain from making any eye contact. "I think so."
Her partner wasn't thrilled with the answer. "You think?"
"I'm a DJ. Not an engineer."
Molly gave the girl an unnerving stare. It was a look that made Georgia feel both guilty and ashamed. Not because she wasn't able to get the system working but because she was too much of a coward to do it the right way. All they had to do was rewire the network and rework the mainframe to bypass the damaged equipment in the server room.
But that required her to deal with Malcolm's corpse and blood spread out over the floor. She'd been avoiding even looking into the room (much less confronting the memory of being in it), since they entered the building. Mainly because Georgia didn't think she had to. There were other ways to get a signal up the tower, and Georgia assured herself she had the ability to get it done. But now she realized her confidence was nothing more than a weak justification for her fear.
Despite her hardened shell, the frightened girl just didn't want to face what she'd done. And now she had to accept that her denial had possibly put hundreds of lives in danger.
The guilt weighing her down must've showed on her face because Molly could tell something was wrong. But before the schoolteacher had a chance to bring it up, a loud bang grabbed both of the women's attention.
Georgia felt her heart, already aching from the emotional plight tearing her apart, drop further into her stomach. She froze in her chair as Molly quickly went into the hallway through the still open door.
From her seat, Georgia could see Molly staring down the hall, and the expression of confused terror that took over her face spoke volumes about what was in front of her. A steady stream of moans echoing their way through the building was growing louder by the second, and Georgia could only imagine how many mindless zombies it took to create such a deafening noise.
But despite her obvious fear, Molly wasn't panicking. In fact, she wasn't moving at all. She just stood there in complete awe of whatever threat was coming towards her.
Which for Georgia was an unseen horror that piqued her curiosity. "What is it?"
Molly answered the question while squinting her eyes to make sure what she was seeing was real. "They're here. And they're...different."
"Different how?"
Finally filled with urgency, Molly darted inside the room and quickly slammed the door behind her. "Just keep working."
Georgia dove back into the screen, frantic to pick up where she left off. But as she typed away, her mind continually failed to focus on the mission. "Why didn't you shoot them?"
Molly pressed her back against the door while trying her best to see down the hall through the door's small window. "I'd run out of bullets...fast."
The picture of a zombie filled hallway kept creeping into Georgia's thoughts, distracting her from the task at hand. She couldn't think. She couldn't focus. And no matter how hard she tried to block it out, the feeling of impending doom began to overwhelm every aspect of Georgia's being.
The stoic expression of solidarity chiseled into Molly's face, said that she’d already accepted her fate. But the hard truth that she wasn't going to make it out of the building alive hit Georgia like a brick wall, especially when she just barely escaped it with her life only hours earlier.
In the back of her mind, she always knew that this was a possibility. That she agreed to a suicide mission for a selfless, noble cause. But there's a difference between believing you’re ready for death and actually embracing it when the end is staring you in the face.
And that's when a series of grey, dried up faces appeared all bunched together in the door's window. Their harrowing moans paralyzed Georgia with an incalculable fear as she tried to wrap her muddled mind around what she was seeing. Are these the same zombies? What happened to them? Are they even still considered alive?
The horrific ghouls began banging on the door, demanding to be let in as Molly firmly pressed her back against it. "Georgia. Georgia! Focus! You need to finish."
Her words snapped the DJ back to reality and filled her with a new sense of determination. Frantic to finish what she started, Georgia's fingers danced around the keyboard. One after the other, she tried every avenue available to her, hoping a signal would stick in the system. But something was preventing her. Nothing seemed to hold. She tried harder and harder, pressing the program to its limits until it eventually gave out and locked her out of the network.
The red error message that flashed across the screen was the final nail in the coffin of Georgia's dreams for success, and her eyes slowly looked to the floor in a stupor of disbelief.
From her position against the door, Molly watched Georgia intently and questioned the girl with a tone of optimistic hope. "Did you do it?"
But instead of answering, the DJ lifted her gaze in a speechless trance. Molly continued to press on, though, looking for a definitive reply. "Georgia, did you fix the signal?!"
She took a moment to think of the best way to communicate her failure, but Georgia could only muster enough will to slowly shake her head with a blank stare.
Surprisingly, Molly took the grim news with nothing more than an accepting sigh. She then wasted no time dealing with the situation the best way she knew how. "Get on the radio and tell the others."
Scanning the computer desk, Georgia caught sight of the handheld radio and scrambled to lift it up to her mouth. "Hello? Hello, come in! This is Georgia. We couldn't get the radio working and we're being overrun."
She paused and anxiously waited for a response that never came. "Can anybody hear me? Come in!"
A mixture of despair and confusion manifested in her voice as Georgia tried one last, desperate plea. "Hello?"
When no on
e answered, she finally looked up at Molly with an expression of hopelessness. "It's not working."
Her words immediately coincided with the door in the broadcast booth bursting open. Through the broken glass in front of them, the two women watched as a flood of walking corpses sluggishly dragged into the room. They were moving so slowly it was almost strange to consider them a threat. But their agonizing moans and deathly stares told Georgia all she needed to know.
One after another, they poured into the room, and Molly raised her weapon ready to shoot. She didn't, though. Instead, she waited, biding her time as her targets inched closer with every passing second. Then, when there was no chance of missing, Molly calmly and carefully squeezed the trigger, making sure each bullet hit its mark right between the eyes.
The gun was loud and shocked Georgia back into the corner of the room. She wanted to fight but didn't know how. There were so many of them, and they just kept coming.
Molly continued to pace herself, dropping each zombie with a single shot. The bodies quickly began to pile up on top of each other. But that didn't stop the droning fiends from climbing over their fallen brethren on their way through the broken glass and into the control room.
With each new casualty, Molly allowed the next one to draw closer. Before long, the endless wave of zombies was right in front of her face but would only come barely within reach before dropping to the floor. The schoolteacher never considered herself a killer but, at that moment, appeared to be in some sort of murderous zone. Molly hit her mark with every shot and felt confident enough to take every last one of them down.
And that's when she pulled the trigger expecting to hear a bang but was met with only the sound of a solitary click. Molly's brief realization that she failed to keep track of her ammo was short lived. The zombies she had confidently let in so close were already on top of her. So much so that the click of her empty gun was immediately followed by her scream as they sunk their hungry mouths onto her body.