by JE Gurley
“They’ll never fly out of here,” he said to himself.
He stole into the dining room. They were all asleep. He went to Basky first. Standing over him, he could smell the corruption in Basky’s rotting flesh. Death for him would be a blessing. Basky opened his eyes, but offered no resistance as Gilford clamped his hand over Basky’s mouth and nose. Within two minutes, he was dead, his tortured lungs unable to force out even a last dying gasp. Gilford closed Basky’s staring eyes.
Who next, he thought. The big Australian would not go as easily as the weakened Basky. Neither would the gullible Italian. He stood between their sleeping bodies, letting the pistol in his hand make the decision. The Australian. He suspects I killed the others. Gilford slowly cocked the pistol with a soft click. Anson rolled over and smiled up at him, a small pistol grasped in his beefy hand.
“I knew you would try this,” he said. “Drop it.”
Gilford stared at him. The Australian’s words meant nothing. He was doing God’s work. He ignored the warning and raised his .45, knowing what would happen. The report of Anson’s pistol sounded distant, as if from another world. Gilford felt no pain. He glanced down bemused at the crimson fluid spouting from his chest. It looked so familiar, but he could not place it. He saw Marino looking at him with an astonished expression demonizing his face. He would not complete his mission. He smiled. Antarctica would do it for him. He did not remember falling, but as he stared up at the ceiling, he felt an overwhelming desire to feel the warmth of the sun once more, to walk the streets of Boston in the spring. Marino stood over him; then leaned down. Gilford smiled up at him and whispered. Then, he felt nothing else.
* * * *
“What the hell happened?” Marino shouted. His heart raced and his mouth begged for water. He had been dreaming of the warmth of the Arizona deserts, when the shot jerked him back to the dining room. His gaze vacillated between Anson holding a pistol and Gilford’s bleeding body.
“He tried to kill us.” He waved the pistol in Basky’s direction. “I think he killed Basky.”
“Why?” Marino’s mind swam with doubt but his trust in Anson was the rock to which he clung in this sea of doubt.
“He was crazy. His guilt was too much. I suspected him from the beginning of murdering several of the men in the lab. I overheard him muttering about doing God’s handiwork. The man was off his rocker.”
Marino remembered his own doubts of Gilford’s sanity and nodded. He went to Basky, checked his pulse, and found none. “He’s dead.”
“Probably thought it was what God wanted, crazy bastard. I’m glad I sleep light and keep this in my jacket pocket.” He held out a small pistol. “A Russian Berezin OTs-21 Malysh or ‘Little One’ in Russian It fires a 5.45 mm bullet. It has a limited range, but from four feet it’s accurate enough.”
“Have you carried that with you all along?” Marino asked.
“I always carry it,” Anson replied mater-of-factly. “You never know.”
Marino went to Gilford, bleeding out the last drops of life on the frigid floor. He leaned over and looked into Gilford’s eyes, surprised to see a smile on his lips. His lips moved as Gilford struggled to say something. Marino leaned over him. Marino’s skin paled and his mind reeled as Gilford’s dying words sank in.
Anson noticed Marino’s reaction. “What did he say?”
Marino stood and stared at the Australian as he tried to answer. Finally, he whispered, “We’re all infected.”
Neither spoke for a long time. They were shocked, both by Gilford’s attempt on their lives, and by his dying revelation. Putting into words, the dark images that their minds conjured, seemed too unspeakable, too ghastly. Outside, the wind died as if Gilford’s death had sated its fury.
“Sounds like the storm’s over,” Anson commented, breaking the morbid silence.
“Good,” Marino snapped. “I want to leave, now. This place is a tomb.” He looked at the two corpses that minutes before had been living, breathing men. He wondered if they would reanimate as zombies. “Do we bury them?”
Anson shook his head. “No. Let the cold freeze their bodies. It’s a fitting tomb. Too good for Gilford, may he rot in hell.”
Marino agreed with his friend’s assessment, but Gilford’s sudden death and the weight of his dying words reduced him to silence. Anson stood and walked toward the door.
“I’ll check the Herc. You gather all the supplies you can find. We don’t know what we’ll find in Melbourne.”
Anson’s calm reasoning stirred Marino out of his morbid desolation. Trying not to stare at Gilford’s body, he located two cloth bags and loaded them with loose tinned goods from the kitchen. Raiding a pantry, he picked through cases of soups, stews, meats, and vegetables. He eyed bags of potatoes and carrots, now frozen solid, but decided perishable foodstuffs weren’t worth the fuel to transport them. On an impulse, he grabbed a 20-pound bag of rice and a case of peaches, one of his favorite fruits.
It took four trips to carry his pilfered goods to the Hercules. By the time his task was finished, he was exhausted and chilled to the bone, which suited him. His tired mind had no energy to spend on speculation. With the katabatic winds off the southern ice abating, the warmer air blowing inland from the Southern Ocean had raised the temperature by twenty degrees, but it was still well below zero, too cold for zombies.
He heard Anson’s agonized howl and rushed to the cockpit. Anson lay on his back gazing up at a tangle of wires dangling from the control panels.
“What’s wrong?”
Anson slid out and sat up. “We’re not going anywhere.”
17
Sept. 1, 2013 Coober Pedy, Australia–
Alex realized that madly rushing the factory in a noble effort to rescue Nicole would only get him killed and maybe her as well. Stealth was required. Gore thought him dead. That gave him a big advantage. He knew the area better than Gore did. That gave him another. He had a backdoor that Gore knew nothing about; the zip line from the roof to an outbuilding. It would not be easy to haul himself along the rope in his condition, but he had to try. A frontal assault gave the advantage to Gore. Just as Gore had described it, the abandoned factory was a fortress. Alex had designed it that way.
Fearful that the sound of the Jeep would warn Gore and attract unwanted zombies, he stashed the Jeep a kilometer away in the garage of a petrol station. The first thing he needed to do was to see to his wound. He hiked to a nearby veterinary office and broke in. Looters had stripped most of the medical clinics of supplies weeks ago. He had been one of them, stocking his own emergency kits, but now all of it was in the factory beyond his reach.
The decomposing bodies of a few cats and dogs and even one rabbit rotted in cages, victims of the plague’s aftermath, starvation. He ignored the smell and searched the shelves for sedatives, antibiotics and, most importantly of all, sterile saline. Whole blood had long since expired and he would find none in a veterinary’s office anyway, but sterile saline solutions had a long shelf life. He first injected himself with an antibiotic, hoping it was as effective on humans as animals. Then he thoroughly cleansed and carefully debrided his wound. The pain was agonizing as he sewed the tender flesh around it shut. The sound of his teeth grinding against the torture mingled with his labored breathing. His hand shook so severely, he dropped the suture needle once and had to re-sterilize it before continuing. He was unable to contort sufficiently to reach the exit wound in his back and settled for applying an antibiotic ointment to both sides and slapping a bandage on it.
He wrapped a tourniquet around his upper left arm, pulling it tight with his teeth, then thumped the inside bend of his arm several times to locate a vein. Taking a deep breath to steady his hand, he threaded the vein with a butterfly needle connected to a bag of saline solution hanging from a door. Satisfied he had done all he could, he laid back to allow the saline solution to replace his lost vital body fluids.
So far, he mused, he had made a bloody mess of things, mucking it up roya
lly. Sadly, he had allowed his disdain for the human race, nourished so tenderly between bouts of fossicking opals, and downing rum and colas at the local roadhouses, to lapse after the Demise when his forced loneliness pushed him toward human companionship. Finding Nicole had brought back memories of Jiselle that he had thought long buried beneath piles empty bottles and the refuse of broken dreams. Even his distrust of Gore had not driven him to send Gore packing.
Companionship, the need for company, for others like oneself; it had failed him. Only his responsibility in endangering Nicole kept him from driving west away from the cities and zombies. He owed it to her to rescue her.
He also recalled Afghanistan, Konar Province about one hundred kilometers north of Jalabad, when he suffered a similar wound. Konar Province, bordering Pakistan to the east, was one of the hottest zones in Northern Afghanistan, a pipeline for men, weapons, and supplies destined for the Hezi Islam faction holding portions of the mountainous territory north of the Khyber Pass. He and a five other members of the ADF’s OLMT, Operations Mentoring and Liaison Team, on a mission to contact a villager the Afghan National Army had assured them was willing to pinpoint an insurgent base, had come under heavy fire from over fifty rebels, their supposed ally among them.
In a daylong battle, unable to contact support, he had watched his comrades picked off one-by-one, until only he remained. Wounded, captured, tortured, and finally rescued, he had cashiered out of the ADF and returned home, only to lose Jiselle to that fateful auto crash less than six months later. As they say, life had gone down the dunny since then.
By the time the sun was kissing the western horizon, the IV was empty, he had eaten, and felt he was as ready as he would ever be. Another day of rest would have been good, but he did not have the luxury of waiting. Gore had taken his Ruger and his 9 mm, but he hoped Gore had not found the extra rifle. Surprise was his secret weapon.
He waited until full dark before venturing out of the clinic. A few zombies stumbled along the streets, but by moving quietly, he avoided attracting them. Halfway to the factory, he had an idea. Smiling to himself for his stroke of brilliance, he left the safety of the shadows and marched down the center of the street singing Waltzing Matilda. His actions produced the results he desired. Zombies began to appear from side streets and empty buildings, and joined the growing throng of walking dead following him. He felt like the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
By the time they reached the edge of the lot fronting the factory, he no longer needed to sing or to encourage his army to follow him. Gore, feeling safe and secure in his second story refuge, had built a blazing fire and a CD blared from Alex’s portable CD player. Alex stopped for a moment to listen, recognizing one of his favorite blues songs by B.B. King, Paying the Cost to Be the Boss.
“Wasting my batteries,” he mumbled. “You’ll pay for that.”
The flickering light and blaring music attracted the zombies, honing in on the factory like sharks after blood, which, indeed, they were. At the edge of the metal fence surrounding the factory, Alex stopped to admire his handiwork. He slid open the gate and skirted the fence to the side of the building. The zombies continued their march toward the factory.
Once he reached the storage shed, he slid back the bolt on the door, disappointed but not surprised to find his spare rifle missing. “The man’s no fool,” he said, dismayed at the prospect of subduing Gore armed only with a knife. He eyed the long length of cable suspended from the roof of the factory, glad that Gore had not though it necessary to remove it, probably keeping as his own emergency exit. Alex knew he didn’t have the strength to traverse the cable hand over hand. He picked up a couple of dirty rags from the floor and wrapped them around his hands in lieu of gloves. Then he slung a length of wire over the cable and secured it beneath his arms. When he grabbed the cable with both hands and suspended his full weight on his arms, the pain nearly ended his assault immediately. He groaned and clamped his mouth shut against the agony. Hand over hand, he clambered up the cable toward the factory roof. He stopped often to rest, dangling from the cable by the wire digging into the flesh under his arms. The last twenty meters were the most difficult, since he had to climb almost vertically up the side of the building. Each foot produced more pain than he thought himself capable of enduring. His shoulders felt as though they were pulling from their sockets and his fingers had gone numb. When at last, he threw his body over the edge of the roof, he lay there panting while the blood throbbed painfully back into his hands and arms. The underside of his arms and his back were raw and bloody from the cable.
His exertions had also torn open some of the stitches in his side and blood seeped through the bandage, but he could not stop to check his wounds. He crept along the roof to the stairs. The next part would be difficult. He hoped his dead zombie friends lived up to his expectations. The stairwell was in full view of the room he had chosen for his bedroom and kitchen. If Gore looked up, Alex knew he was a dead man.
His ruse went better than he had expected. Gore, confident of his lofty position, did not ignore the zombies milling about, as Alex feared. He stood in the window with the Ruger, firing into their midst with undisguised glee, laughing after each shot.
“Take that!” he yelled. He fired again. “Eat this! Yeah!”
Alex eased down the stairs until he spotted Nicole cowering in a corner. Her battered face and swollen lip bore testament to Gore’s savagery. For that alone, he’s going to die, Alex swore. Nicole saw him and started to rise, but he quickly motioned her to remain where she was. Gore was completely oblivious to anything except the zombies. He fired until the rifle was empty and reloaded. He turned to Nicole.
“You want to watch?” he asked. When she did not respond, he growled, “Answer me, bitch, or I’ll drop you down to them. Feel like a bit of exercise?” Gore’s maniacal laughter filled Alex with rage. He crept closer. Gore began firing again. Alex slowly eased along the open space, until he was opposite Gore’s position, but still too far away to jump him. He would have to move closer. Gore, intent on his hunting spree, allowed him to move to the edge of the open door. Then, having emptied the second clip, he turned to grab another. Alex froze, but Gore did not look up as he reloaded.
“Bastards are dropping like flies,” he called out to Nicole. “This is a lark.”
Just as Alex took a step, the CD ended. He could not prevent his foot from coming down, and it landed in a patch of sand and slipped. Gore jerked around at the scuffing noise. Alex threw his knife underhanded, but in his haste, it only struck Gore in the thigh.
“You!” he screamed as he pawed at the hunting knife protruding from his leg with one hand and pointed the Ruger with the other.
Alex leaped to one side, hitting the concrete floor hard enough to stun him. Gore ripped the knife from his thigh and fired. The bullet struck the concrete just millimeters from Alex’s face. Alex rolled until he was behind a low concrete platform that had once housed some machine, long ago carted to the junkyard, when they had shut down the factory.
“I’ll kill you!” Gore yelled at him. “I knew I should have finished you off.”
“That was your fist mistake, Gore,” Alex replied. “Your second was what you did to Nicole. For that you must die.”
As he hurled his taunts at Gore, Alex used the cover of the platform to crawl into the shadows along one wall. To locate him, Gore would have to find an electric torch. Alex knew he had no chance of reaching the room and his weapons or of retrieving the dropped knife without exposing himself. He continued crawling until he reached the stairs. He would have to draw Gore out of the building. He broke his cover and raced for the stairs. Concrete chips from a ricocheting bullet stung his face. Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the ground level and ran for the door. Gore, limping, was right behind him.
Outside, he cowered against the wall as zombies turned in his direction and began to shuffle toward him. He spotted a zombie corpse, one of Gore’s victims, and began smearing blood on his face, arms, and cl
othing. The smell gagged him. He fought down the urge to vomit and stood still, allowing the zombies to come to him, hoping his ploy worked. A couple of them sniffed him but otherwise ignored him. Gore burst out the door. As he spotted the zombies, he began firing randomly. Alex could do nothing but hope that one Gore’s bullets did not find him.
“Damn!” Gore yelled as he realized the Ruger was empty. As he turned to reenter the factory, the door slammed shut. Alex heard the bolt sliding home.
“You rotten bastard!” Nicole screamed through the door at him. “How about a little exercise?”
“You bitch!” Gore shouted and then began to run around the edge of the gathered zombies. In spite of his injured leg, his fear propelled him at a good pace. He easily outdistanced the much slower zombies that turned to follow him. Alex joined them, lagging slightly behind. Gore almost made it to the open gate and safety, before Alex heard the loud report of the shotgun from the open second-story window. Gore fell with a loud groan, clawing at his back where the pellets had struck. He tried to rise, but a second shot hit him in the legs. The zombies descended on him. Alex smiled when Gore’s screams abruptly ceased as the zombies ripped apart his body.
Alex slowly backed to the door and heard metal scraping metal as Nicole pushed it open to admit him. She glared at him, challenging him to deny her the right to kill Gore.
“Nice shot,” he said.
She attempted to smile, but her bruised and swollen face made it almost demonic.
“I thought you were dead,” she said as she held the door open for him.
“Me too,” he answered. “Mind helping me up the stairs? I need a drink and a cigarette.”
* * * *
For the four days, Alex and Nicole remained in the factory healing their wounds. Eventually, the swelling of her face subsided, the bruises receded to a faded dull purple and her lip healed, but he knew she bore deeper scars that would not quickly mend as easily. She kept to herself, sleeping in another room, cooking and cleaning for Alex until he was able to move around unaided, but she would not speak of her ordeal. Alex knew better than to attempt to pry the facts from her. Knowing Gore, he could guess. His own wound healed more slowly. He had managed to avoid an infection, but the bullet had torn through several layers of muscle in its passage. Each move produced a separate kind of pain as muscle slid over muscle, but he would live.