“Cover your heads!” Diane shouted as she reached out to the children by her, pushing their heads toward the floor. The other teachers followed her lead. Within seconds, shots rang out. The banging and shuffling sounds stopped, but the children were crying.
A voice from outside shouted, asking if everyone inside was okay. The teachers could hear them clearing away debris. They quickly motioned for the children to stand up. Diane started pulling away the furniture that blocked the doorway and motioned for Karen to help her. Amy and Sue briefly consoled a few children and then helped clear away the pile of desks and chairs.
The young women worked together to quickly clear the doorway, and lined up the children for the frightening walk past the piles of mangled flesh and bones. They pushed the door open and stepped out. What they saw was more than any teacher could manage. Tony and the three males had been shot into pieces. As Diane passed the creature which had attacked Tony, she thought she recognized something about him. He was wearing a torn, striped business shirt and ragged dress pants. But his face had a distinctive mustache.
“Oh sweet God, help us. The creature who killed Tony was his father! How can that be?” Diane turned aside and doubled over with stomach cramps. She thought she would vomit on the spot. Her face turned gray and she started to sweat. Karen caught up with her and held her head and elbow. Diane leaned over and threw up everything in her stomach until dry heaves took over. It was all too much to take in.
Amy and Sue helped some of the children out to a few waiting parents. The police took the rest with them. One police man stepped up to Karen and introduced himself. “I’m Lieutenant Grant. We’ll take these kids to the station in town.”
Diane’s color gradually returned to her face. Karen eyed her friend and slowly let go of her elbow. Diane turned to Lieutenant Grant, knowing that she had to tell him what she had learned. “The creature lying there is Tony’s father. He ate his own son. These children may only have creatures looking for them.”
Lieutenant Grant’s face blanched white and contorted painfully. Diane watched him struggle to maintain composure.
Karen had been staring down the country road for a while. She thought she saw movement, but wasn’t certain. Too soon, what she saw made her cringe. Another group of creatures was making its way toward the school. “Good God, it’s their parents! Look at the clothes!” Karen pointed.
Lieutenant Grant was a man of swift decision. “Get the children out of here.” He ran to open car doors, waving his arms to motion the children inside. Amy and Sue rushed students into their cars, pushing them in with their heads down toward the seats. They slammed their car doors shut, and roared out of the parking lot toward town.
Karen stayed with Diane. They leaned against each other for a brief moment of support. Lieutenant Grant saw their shock, and he needed to keep them alive. Asked if they knew how to shoot, Diane nodded. She turned toward her parked car, ran to the trunk, fumbled her keys out of her pocket and opened it. She reached into the trunk and pulled out her crossbow and bolt box. She ran back to Lieutenant Grant. “Everything happened so fast. I never thought about it.”
The police formed a line. Diane and Karen stood together behind them. The creatures were stumbling closer. When the monsters came within firing range, the police started shooting. Heads exploded like melons, eyeballs popped and squirted out, brains and blood spewed outward as creature heads ripped open and their bodies collapsed underneath. Black liquid oozed out of eye and nose openings; smelling like filthy sewage. The body stench was overwhelming. The shooters were close enough to smell it and they gagged and retched.
With the killing done, Diane and Karen stepped gingerly through the carnage. They agonized over pieces of faces they knew; clothing they recognized. These monsters were parents. Unspeakable evil had changed them; sent them toward their own children.
Lieutenant Grant gathered everyone together. “There’s nothing more to do here. We’ll regroup in town.” Diane and Karen were grateful to leave the preschool. The gruesome scene sickened them.
The ride into town was not long, but there were roaming creatures here and there along the way. When they arrived at the station, they got out and quickly entered; most edgy and shaking. Rumors began circulating through the station as staff members sought answers.
Lieutenant Grant held a strategic meeting. He outlined what he knew about killing the creatures, training his men to shoot for the heads. Smashing heads with anything available was his alternative recommendation. He included details from the preschool attack. He was very specific that parents were killing their own children; and children were creatures, too. Shocked faces filled the room.
Diane and Karen spent the night at the station. Throughout the night, screams and crashing sounds filled the air. Gun shots resonated in the streets. The next morning, creatures with smashed heads were strewn everywhere in town. There was no time to identify them and the stench was thick. Town dump trucks collected the piles of smashed bodies. The local mortuary burned the remains. But things became significantly worse when creatures began to stream in from other towns. Any able-bodied people left in town were pressed into the battle with whatever arms and tools they had.
Diane volunteered to fight when Lieutenant Grant asked about her crossbow skills. Diane told him about her family’s passion for archery and medieval history. She admitted that she had hunted on state managed kills to reduce various wildlife populations as part of a national archery association.
Karen posed a different problem. She didn’t have the experiences that Diane had, but she offered to stay with her. She asked if there was a spare pry bar anywhere in the building. Lieutenant Grant’s eyes widened. He knew he had breaching bars and multi-pry bars. He mulled over the legalities of giving her one. He made the decision quickly to have an officer get one for her. The officer returned and handed over a basic multi-pry bar.
“We need to protect ourselves now,” Lieutenant Grant said. “I’ve ordered guard duty around the building perimeter. You’ll have to kill what you see.”
Diane looked squarely at Karen. They understood that they were going to help each other. They offered to take a turn immediately. The two women exited the front door guardedly. There was no guarantee of what they would find. They decided to walk clockwise around the perimeter. Nothing was unusual at the building entrance, but as soon as they reached the north side, a group of creatures slithered toward them.
Diane shot twice, and two fell, but three more continued toward them. Diane aimed again and bolts slammed into two more. They collapsed, but the third lunged snarling and drooling toward Karen. She moved toward it and swung her multi-pry bar around with a mighty heave to smash in its head. Hard metal met brains and bones. The creature collapsed to the ground. Stinking black blood and grey brain bits streamed out behind the gaping hole in its head.
Karen and Diane regrouped to continue their rotation around the building. They had cleared all sides and were near the entrance when another group of creatures approached. Slobbering and jerking, with eyes bulging and bony hands grasping forward, they moved toward the teachers. Diane gagged involuntarily when she recognized one as a child saved at the preschool the day before. Tears flooded her eyes as she shot her student in the head and then shot the mother. The father kept coming.
Faltering, she hesitated for a moment too long, and the father lunged out to grab her. Karen pushed him away with the tines of the pry bar and then swung it like a baseball bat right across his head. His brains spewed out onto the pavement as his skull was crushed. Karen swung again across his chest, hearing cracking sounds as his body caved inward. She heaved the bar straight forward and knocked him completely off his feet, hissing and spitting all the way to the ground, arms flailing, to die.
“It was Angie,” Diane choked the words out. Karen simply nodded as her arms collapsed to her sides. It was becoming more painful by the hour.
They ran into the entrance and leaned up against the first wall they found. Breat
hing heavily, with sick stomachs they faced each other. It was nearly impossible to breathe, let alone talk.
Diane’s heartbroken words pierced the air. “I don’t know if I can ever teach again…oh, my God! I’ve just killed one of my students!” She broke into heaving sobs.
Karen reached out to put her hand on Diane’s shoulder. She said nothing. There were no words that could be enough. She only knew that they must rest if they were to survive. She walked with her friend to a nearby bench and they sat down, putting their weapons on the floor in front of their feet. They sat for a long time, saying nothing. With blank stares, their eyes watched the stream of policemen and civilians coming and going. The two rested, simply sitting together for a long while. Sleep escaped them. Hours passed. They looked knowingly at each other. It was time for another round of guard duty.
“A Dead World is Born from Chaos and Pain”
Story #5
By
Jackson Hewlett
Part 1: Fighting Fire with Fire
As they ran, the woman, her long black hair drenched in sweat and her hands around her swollen stomach, threw up.
"I- I can't go on. I just can't," the woman stammered, trying to wipe her mouth. When Luke turned to look at his pregnant wife Stephanie, there was liquid running down her bare legs, and now, vomit all over her hospital gown. She looked like she might pass out any second. He put one arm around her and with his other, choked up on the fire ax he was carrying.
"Listen to me. If you can't run, we're all going to die here with--" But Luke was cut off but a wailing that seemed to penetrate his very skull. A man, he must have been a doctor since he had was wearing scrubs and was pathetically wielding a scalpel that would count for nothing, turned the corner, screaming. He tripped and stumbled, but quickly righted himself without pausing his wailing. As he flew down the hospital hall and reached them, the doctor took just enough time to try to throw Stephanie to the ground, in a desperate attempt to save himself.
Luke didn't pause. Before the doctor was even a step away, he took the fire ax he had commandeered and aimed it at the doctor's calf. The thick metal sliced open the doctor's flesh like it was a cake, and before the blood started to pour out, Luke saw the raw muscle that he had just opened up and ruined.
"WHAT THE HELL? WHAT THE F--" the doctor screamed, before falling down and clutching his leg.
Luke had no time to react, no time to even say a word. The creature that followed around the corner didn't even look human. The center of its chest had been opened up, a bright red cavity where intestines were spilling out and where it wasn't clear if all of the organs were even present. The monstrosity was covered in blood from nearly head to toe. Its ribs were exposed around its sides, and the face... also covered in blood, but it had one bright metal object protruding. Someone, in a vain attempt to stop the zombie, had carved back its mouth, somehow leaving a jaw hanging half in place with a large flap of skin hanging off to the side. The scalpel had finally been plunged into the creature's eye, where there it stayed, yet to no avail. This was the stuff of nightmares.
Luke didn't think, he just reacted. Pulling the ax up, he held it like a baseball bat in the split second before the zombie reached him. Everything else seemed to fade away: the bright florescent lights of the hospital, the terrifying screams of the doctor, even the very walls around him. All he saw before him was blood, chaos, death.
He swung the ax. Its top-heavy head flew forward, and he nearly lost his grip, but without even blinking, he saw it had its mark. As he stumbled forward, it hit the zombie's face, full on, and lodged there with all its weight, splitting the already ruined face into two from a sideways angle. The sound was a wretched thwack, a grotesque mix of blunt force and wet slicing as if a bag of wet cement had been dropped on the ground and had burst opened. The power of the hit threw the zombie back, head first, but did not make it fall. The skull had clearly cracked, and the ax was buried half way into the animal's face.
Luke quickly grabbed his wife and ducked through a set of swinging doors to the right. The monster hardly paused, but it was just enough time for them to escape. Luke realized, however, that the doctor was still screaming. As the zombie regained its footing and without even removing the ax, it lunged at the man on the floor unable to escape. Not even a second passed before several other zombies ran up and joined the first, clawing and biting the doctor, tearing him limb from limb. The doctor could be heard begging them to stop. Luke only caught a second of it and thought he might throw up himself, but grabbed Stephanie and quickly ushered her down the next corridor.
Part 2: Dead, All Too Dead
Luke burst through the door at the end of the stairwell. The hospital's parking garage was a scene of insanity. There was a leg laying on the ground not more than 20 feet from them, just a leg, torn away from its body. In a desperate attempt to flee, several cars had also crashed into each other, and at the far end of the parking level, one was on fire, flames licking the concrete ceiling. This was chaos, pure, plain, and simple. No director, no pyrotechnics, no gimmicks. Just blood, gore, and death. The world he knew was gone.
But to his and Stephanie's left was a military Humvee, with the driver's door open and running with the keys in the ignition. There was no one in sight, and Luke guided Stephanie to the vehicle as quickly as he could.
"It's here," Stephanie said, weakly. "It's here, we can't wait."
"I know, I know. I'm going to protect you. Get in and we'll be safe, all of us," Luke responded, helping her in, before quickly taking the driver's seat. He quickly pocketed the 9mm pistol that was laying on the dashboard. "To Hell with all of this."
He twisted the wheel and jammed on the gas, rocketing out from the garage at full speed. When he came to the traffic gate at the side of the hospital, he didn't even stop or look to see if anyone was there, but rammed through it all without hesitation. Once on the road, he turned the corner and stopped. There in his path, where perhaps several hundred zombies, vacant eyes and mouths hanging open, ready to rip flesh from bone.
"OWWWWWW," Stephanie screamed out, fighting through the labor pains.
Luke pressed the pedal to the floor. When he started to hit the first few zombies, it knocked him out of his stupor, and he wondered for a moment if these were even conscious people anymore, if he was killing human beings. But no, with each body, he could see the dead eyes of each zombie as they were running toward the truck, and then, "thump, thump, "... just like that... they were gone under the wheels of the vehicle. When Luke hit the mass of the mob, the vehicle slowed down, and he winced. There was the same sound, but blood shot up and the crunching of bones could be heard as he rolled over body after body. He imagined the heads popping and the pulp gushing forward in a spray.
Suddenly, Luke realized, he was slowing down even more than he should. Were these creatures able to somehow continue grappling with a military-grade vehicle even after being run over? He looked down at the wheel. What was going on? That's when he realized: the gas tank read empty. He was out of fuel.
Panic flooded his mind, as he raced through his options. Without thinking, he put the vehicle in reverse and floored it, leaving a sea of mangled zombie bodies, half of which were mashed into the pavement, the other half still clawing forward for their chance to devour any and everyone. The road was painted a deep crimson color, and along with limbs, there was a mush of of liquid and flesh that looked more like the icing of a desert than anything else.
Luke didn't make it far, maybe 100 yards, before the Humvee sputtered to a stop. He jack-knifed the vehicle to the side, hoping it might serve as some sort of blockade and buy them even a few precious seconds of time.
"Come on," he shouted at Stephanie, in a feeble voice that surprised him. He realized in a bath of cold sweat, he was awash in fear. His heart was pumping faster than it ever had before. Yet, his wife, in anguish and pain, could barely climb from the vehicle and seemed half-alive.
"We have to get off the street, quickly," he cried in her
ear, realizing that if he didn't shelter her, she would never be able to run in the open. She seemed to nod in approval.
That's when the first wave of the undead hit the other side of the Humvee, rocking it forward with the weight of mob. Luke flinched and pulled back, but realized the monsters thought they were in the vehicle still. He had only a few seconds left before they realized otherwise.
Part 3: Now It Has Arrived
"Run," Luke screamed at his wife. He yanked her arm and pulled her away from the vehicle. When he looked up, he saw one of the creatures staring blankly at him. It had mounted the roof of the Humvee, and in a moment, flung itself into the air as it jumped toward them. The husband and wife lurched forward, making it no more than a handful of steps before that first creature reached them. Remembering the firearm, Luke ripped the 9mm from his pocket and fired three times. One of the bullets missed, one hit the zombie's left shoulder, but the last, blew apart the top of the monster's skull, sending brain and blood blasting backward before the creature fell.
Tales of the Zombie Apocalypse (Issue #1 | August 2015) Page 4