by R. J. Spears
I despised this world we now lived in. I hated it for what it did to us, taking away any of what we were and what we believed in a piece at a time.
With the machine gun out of action again, Mike was free to open up on the advancing soldiers. The soldiers scattered wildly, taking cover behind whatever they could. I brought my gun up and fired, too. From a quick estimate, I’d say we just reduced their functional army in half. I started wondering if they might contemplate a pull-out, when I got my answer. The turret on the MAV started to rotate in my direction again.
Mike had stopped firing. In the moonlight, I saw that he had the walkie-talkie to his ear. He looked in my direction and motioned frantically, waving his free arm in a downward gesture, telling me to take cover.
I looked back at the MAV and its terrifying gun. The world started slowing down again -- moving in millisecond intervals. Off to the left, I heard a whooshing noise and a stream of light appeared out of nowhere, streaking toward the MAV. Simultaneously, the barrel of the MAV brightened to supernova proportions and that was last thing I fully and distinctly remember. My world filled with light and sound, brightness overwhelming me and the sound filling my ears to such a point I thought my eardrums might burst. The concussive force of the blast knocked me off my feet and partially out of the doorway which probably saved my life as the ceiling collapsed. My head hit the floor and was filled with a light show of orange, yellow, and red before it was swamped with a tsunami of black.
While drifting in the dark waters of semi-consciousness, I felt something tugging at my shoulder. Something insistent to the point of desperation. As my systems shut down completely, I hoped it wasn’t a zombie.
Chapter 28
Out of the Dark
I don’t know how long I was out, but my head pounded with the beat of a thousand drums when I came to. Big bass drums and this band was going to town on them. Even opening my eyes hurt, but then I felt a wave of panic shoot through me. My world was filled only with black. I couldn’t see anything.
I started to sit-up, but I felt a hand on my forehead gently push me back down and soft voice shushed me. Kara.
My body relaxed and slumped back down into someone’s lap.
“We’re in a supply closet,” she said, flicking on a flashlight, its dim illumination giving the small room some definition.
“How long have I been out?” I asked. My throat felt raw.
“A couple hours.”
“How’s Mike?”
“I don’t know. When the tank shot in your direction, I ran to see if there was anything I could do for you. I lost track of Mike after that and dragged you into this supply closet.”
“What’s happening outside?”
“After Greg’s team took out the big gun it looked like things descended into man-to-man street fighting. You were completely out of it, and I was afraid you were really dead, but you had a pulse and were still breathing. I only left you a couple times, but it looks like the soldiers made a full-on assault on the church. Things are in chaos now as far as I can tell. The undead are everywhere.”
“How is the church?”
“I couldn’t tell, but it looks like they made a huge hole in the front and several smaller ones. I think the zombies are inside.”
“We need to get out there,” I said, sitting up, but she stopped me again.
“You probably have a concussion.”
“It doesn’t matter. They need us.”
“How are we going to help? You don’t even have a gun!”
I groped around on the floor, searching for my gun, then patted my side for my Glock, but it was gone, too.
“Your gun’s in the room along with your bat.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“I have my rifle, but I only have half-dozen bullets.”
We remained silent for moment. “Joel. I shot that soldier. The one with the machine gun on the Humvee.”
“You probably saved mine and Mike’s lives.”
“I know, but I killed him.” There was an aching in her voice.
At the moment, I would have given everything I had to ease her pain. I had no answers, so I did the best I could. “Sometimes you have to do things. Things you never wanted to do. This world doesn’t leave us a lot of choices.”
If my words had any effect, positive or negative, I had no idea. We stayed quiet for a few minutes before a burst of gunfire broke the quiet.
“Can I have the flashlight?” I asked.
She handed it over to me, and l used it to explore the closet. It was eight by six and held no surprises. It was filled with cleaning supplies. There was a large silver floor buffer, several mops and brooms and a crapload of bottles of cleaning liquids. The smell was citrus fresh which was a very positive change from the stink of the undead.
The muffled popping of small arms fire made its way through the walls. Things were happening, and I needed to get off my ass and out of there.
When I stood up, I thought I might vomit as a wave of nausea swept over me, but I got it under control. Kara got to her feet and steadied me.
“Are you sure you’re ready to go back out there?” she asked.
“There’s not a lot of choices. Our people are back there and need our help.”
I grabbed the sturdiest looking mop I could find and leaned it against the wall. It took two kicks to get it to break, each one of the kicks sending shock waves of pain through my aching body. I hefted my new weapon, really wanting it to be a baseball bat, but beggars can’t be choosers. It would have to do. Besides, unlike a bat, it did have a nasty pointed end that could be useful.
Before opening the door, I put my ear to it to listening for anything in the hallway. I didn’t hear anything, so I cautiously pulled the door open.
The hallway was empty. The sound of gunfire was a little more clear and I thought I heard someone screaming. The screaming stopped abruptly.
My first few steps were rocky as I tottered along, my balance off from my scrambled brain, but I kept moving with Kara walking behind me shining her flashlight into the dark. Nearing a corner, I heard something moving our way. Whatever was coming our way sounded like it was dragging something. I backed against the wall and waited.
The dead thing came around the corner. It looked to be a teenage girl, her face and upper arms badly mangled. She was in a cheerleader’s outfit that was shredded in several places. Something had gnawed away at her head leaving part of her skull exposed and a hunk of her hair dangling down like a lopsided mullet. Initially, she didn’t see us as she moved into our corridor, but stopped, her head swiveling on her shoulder in such a way that she reminded me of an animal sniffing the air for a lost scent. She must have caught ours because she launched herself at us a second later, her teeth bared, ready tear into us.
By instinct alone, I brought up my mop handle and skewered her in the chest. The handle was just long enough to keep her clawing hands out of reach, but she still bucked and snatched at me. We danced in a small arc for a moment as she stumbled around. Kara stepped back, not knowing what to do and started bring her rifle up.
“Don’t. Your shot will only bring more down on us,” I said, grunting with the exertion of wrestling this damn thing. “I’m going to try to get her back to you. When I do, whack the shit out of her head.”
It was easier said than done. The zombie’s movements were erratic, and I quickly noticed the distance between me and the zombie seemed to be getting shorter. The damned thing was pushing its way down the mop handle towards me.
Time was running out so I lowered myself to one knee and pivoted my body getting the zombie’s back to Kara. She raised her rifle up and brought it down in a vicious arc, the stock of her rifle smacking the side of the thing’s head with a sickening thud. The zombie’s eyes went from gray to dark as it slid backwards off the jagged point, toppling onto the floor.
We made it to an exit on the west side of the school and I discovered that Kara’s assessment was spot on. It was total chao
s. There had to be at least a hundred or more zombies in the street.
I looked to the church and saw a lone figure run out of a doorway firing at the soldiers, scattering them.
Kara must have seen him, too. “I think that’s Hack.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Whoever it was didn’t get far as a small herd of zombies surrounded him. Kara moved toward the exit, but I grabbed her arm.
“If it’s Hack, we’ve got to help him,” she said, her face etched with concern.
“We wouldn’t make it twenty feet,” I said. Along with the soldiers, there was a river of zombies standing between us and the lone man.
Whoever it was, he was putting up a fight. His gun sounded over and over again, and we could see parts of zombies flying in the air. Then the firing stopped.
“Shit,” I said under my breath. Now, I wanted to go out and help.
Before I could even start, the sounds of shots directly in front of us caught my attention. Two soldiers stood back-to-back on top of Humvee firing down onto a dozen or more zombies. The Humvee sat tilted at an angle, hung-up on the short brick wall in front of the school. It looked like they had tried to escape in the Humvee, but became stuck on the wall. With each shot a zombie would fall, but two would take its place.
The soldier closest to us ran out of bullets in his M-16, drew a pistol, and started shooting into the crowd. He was in full panic mode. Only a few of his shots put any zombies out of commission. When the pistol ran empty, he threw it into the crowd and picked-up his M-16 and began to beat at the clawing hands. His feet slipped out from under him, and he went down. Two of the undead things grabbed his legs, pulled him off the Humvee, and a half dozen of them descended on him. His screams pierced the night for what seemed like forever.
The other soldier saw his predicament and concentrated his fire into one section of the mass of zombies, knocking the slightest of holes in the wall of the undead. He took a moment to measure his jump, and then took his chance, leaping onto the ground. He made it four steps when the hole closed and they swarmed over him. I backed away from the door.
“This way’s lost,” I said to Kara. “We’ll have to try the back.”
We made our way in the dark. We saw a couple of zombies down one of the hallways, but we double-backed to avoid them, taking a parallel hallway only to find even more zombies there. We were running out of options when we heard gunshots and a loud commotion coming our way. The shots were coming from a perpendicular corridor and getting closer by the second. Going back the way we came was an option, but not a good one. I put my arm out in front of Kara and slowly backed down the corridor until we arrived at the previous intersection.
Whether it was friend or foe coming our way, we didn’t know, but would in just a few seconds. If it was friend, then that would be fine, but if it was foe, Kara only had six bullets to defend us.
“Get ready to run back the way we came,” I whispered. “If it’s soldiers, you’re going to have to shoot them.”
A myriad of emotions passed across her face and none of them were good, but she drew her rifle up and aimed down the corridor.
That’s when Mike backed around the corner, firing back on whatever was coming his way.
“Mike,” Kara said running towards him.
Mike looked our way and shouted, “No, don’t come this way. There’s a whole lot of zombies coming at me.” He sprayed his M-16 down the hall, turned, and sprinted our way.
“What’s back your way?” he asked as he got to us. He was panting and his complexion was extremely pale.
“More of the same. Maybe less than are coming with you,” I said, still staring past Mike. Two zombies shuffled around the corner.
He took a quick look and said, “Let’s head upstairs. Maybe we can cross over them to the back. What’s it like on the west side of the building?”
“It’s crawling with zombies,” Kara said as we started running for the stairwell just as the sound of feet filled the hall behind us.
“We’ll have to head east and then circle around to the church,” Mike said as we hit the stairs and started up to the second floor.
We got to the top of the stairs as the zombies just got to the base of them and started up for us. We ran down a long corridor and turned the corner to face off with three zombies. One female and two males. The males looked like they have been high school students and the female could have been a teacher. Mike shot all of them, one right after the other.
“How are you guys on ammo?” Mike asked.
“I only have six shots left,” Kara said.
“I lost my gun when the room I was in collapsed,” I said. “All I have is this friggin’ mop handle.” I held my weapon aloft for him to see.
“Not good, not good,” Mike said shaking his head, a lost look in his eyes. The zombies crested the stairs and surged towards us. “I’m down to my last mag and my sidearm.” He looked down the corridor to our left and saw a group of undead heading our way. Going to the right would put us back on the street in the midst of the horde. Our options were narrowing with every second.
CHAPTER 29
The Library
“Go that way, towards the library,” he said firing on the first two zombies surging our way, concentrating on each shot and dropping one with each pull of the trigger. We ran toward the double glass doors of the library. I got there first, opening the doors, and letting Kara in while I waited for Mike. The library was in shambles with several large shelves of books toppled like trees, books strewn across the floor like fall leaves. There were several tables overturned and pulled against a row of shelves. Someone had been trapped up here and pulled the tables there as some sort of half-assed barrier.
Mike backed slowly towards the door, firing and making every shot count. The only problem was that there more zombies than he had bullets. In reflection, I’m sure that he had made the same calculation.
“Head in, Mike,” I yelled just as he was about to me. “Maybe we can find something to block the doors and slow them down.” Kara was inside looking for the back exit.
“You first, Joel. I’ll keep them off us for now.” The zombies filled the width of the corridor, practically stumbling over themselves to get to us. I entered the library desperately looking for something we could use to block the doors when I heard the doors close behind me. When I pivoted and saw Mike was still outside the closed doors, something in me went cold.
He fired three more times and that was it. He turned towards us and pushed the M-16 between the handles of the door, locking Kara and I inside and him out. With the zombies.
“Kara!” I shouted, feeling dread seeping into my body. “Mike, what in the hell are you doing?”
By now, he had pulled out his pistol. One of the faster zombies was just about on him when he blew its brains down the hall. Kara came to up beside me. He looked over his shoulder and lifted his left arm. There was an open bite wound on his hand.
How did we miss that?
“Mike!” Kara said. “They’ll kill you.”
“I’m dead already,” he said shooting another zombie. “I need you guys to go down the back exit.”
“No,” she said her voice thick with anguish.
“Please,” he said. “This not going to end well.” We didn’t move. “Please,” he said again. “I don’t want you to see this.” He shot another zombie, pivoted slightly and blew the brains of another one, his moves precise and measured.
I grabbed Kara by the hand and pulled her away from the doors, “Let’s go.” She resisted for a moment, her head turned toward Mike, but then conceded, stumbling into the depths of the library. I wish I had done the same.
As we reached the first set of bookshelves, I turned to look back in Mike’s direction. A small horde was surging down on him. He must have been counting bullets. I saw him take down one last zombie, then move the gun to the side of his head, and pull the trigger. His body slumped down the glass and the zombies were on him.
I
stood transfixed, unable to move.
This man had given it his all, up to and including his life, and it didn’t matter. The zombies were relentless. They didn’t care about his bravery or his devotion to us. He was only food and they had him. Or what was left of him. He had kept the most important part of himself protected from them -- his humanity.
We stood just outside the emergency exit door. My feet felt like lead weights, all my energy drained and depleted.
Tears ran down Kara’s cheeks cutting tiny streams through the patina of dust and dirt. Her eyes looked sadder than I had ever seen them. A wordless conversation passed between us with most of the dialog consisting of questions. What could we have done to save Mike? Why don’t they just stop? The last question was the show stopper, though. How do we go on? This was quickly followed by; should we go on?
We went on because we had to. We went on because the alternative meant the end of mankind. We went on because that’s what we did. In spite of all the shit that was going on around us, we kept going because we lived on hope -- hope that tomorrow would be better than the last.
But hope is a terrible thing to have when there’s none to be had.
That was the damnedest thing about the zombies. I had no idea what spurred them on. Their’s was the most basic of creeds -- kill and eat. There were no layers of emotions complicating their existence, no love or hate. It didn’t matter to them whether there was a tomorrow or not, because they lived in the now.
I pulled her to me and hugged her, wanting to find the words to comfort and give hope. Something that would reinvigorate us, but I was all out words. They had drained out of me during this night. She clung to me for all it was worth -- which in my estimation wasn’t much, but it was all we had.
I thought I heard her whispering, very softly, but only caught a few words before I figured out what she was saying.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” she whispered. “I will fear no evil for you are with me.” He voice drifted too low to be heard then came up again a few seconds later. “...my cup runs over. Your goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in your house forever. Amen.”