The machine guns had been removed from the Humvees. It was probably just as well, in case I felt tempted to play Rambo and try mowing down the pursuing mob of zombies with a full auto weapon, a tactic that clearly hadn't worked for whoever had built the barricade, guys who probably had a lot more training than I did. For me, it would've been briefly satisfying on one level, but far more dangerous than simply retreating, as the noise would attract more and more of them from both sides of the river.
As usual when you came across a battle site, there weren't many bodies lying around, as most had gotten up and walked away, but there were a few scattered before the barricade, most in civilian garb, with a couple in military and police uniforms. There was no smell of decay, beyond the usual in a city of the dead, as the bodies had—unlike zombies—almost completely rotted away.
As was also usual at a battle site—I suppose from any war, but the war with the undead was the only one I knew—it was impossible to guess the details of what had gone on here: how many had fought, or died, or even whether the barricade had been intended to keep the undead on this side of the river, or to keep them from coming over from the other side.
Well, it all seemed pretty moot now. It was just a few vehicles and lifeless bodies, with weeds growing up through the cracks around them. It wasn't like there were going to be any people to make a monument here, like it was some kind of Gettysburg or Normandy. Just one of probably ten thousand places where the human race had just puttered out. In a few years, it'd be like finding the campsite and spearheads of some Neanderthals, the odd and poorly designed remnants of some species that didn't have what it takes to survive.
I looked back as I climbed over the barricade. Although, for the long haul, the dead seemed well-suited to survival, at the moment, they were falling behind me. The roadblock would probably slow them down enough that, by the time some of them made it over, I'd be way out of sight and they'd sit down on the bridge and forget all about me.
I ran across the bridge. The wrecked vehicles made it impossible to see all the way to the other side, but there were no signs of zombies anywhere, and I almost started to relax. I looked down at the water, crystal clear and fast moving from the center of the channel to the far bank, shallower nearer the side I had left. I dodged past a few more vehicles and I was to the opposite side of the bridge. I could no longer see the barricade, but I was sure the dead had not surmounted that yet.
To my right was the park I had seen from the other side of the river, but to my left was a parking lot, beyond which was a high, brick wall, brightly painted. It ran from the river, along the parking lot, to where it connected to a large, irregularly-shaped brick building, maybe four stories tall. In the wall facing the parking lot, there was a large metal gate, while along the wall was spray painted "R U DYING 2 LIVE?" I wished I had time to ponder that, as it had been some time since I had someone other than myself to pose abstract questions, but there was an obvious impediment to such philosophizing—the crowd of zombies, probably almost two hundred, that was crowded in front of the wall, pressing against it.
* * * * *
They hadn't seen me yet. They were pretty intent on the wall, and they must've been for some time, as they weren't moaning or agitated, but just kind of milling around.
The street on this side was not as clogged with wrecked cars, so I couldn't dodge between them and hope to remain unseen. I would be running along an empty street, less than fifty yards from them. Still, if I just started running, I'd be in no worse situation than I was with the previous mob: I just had to keep running for long enough that I was out of their sight, then keep going till I was in a safer area. It was either that, or jump off the bridge into the river. Although the fall looked survivable, the chance of spraining an ankle, losing all my supplies and equipment, and coming up somewhere downstream that was just as bad made me think that it was not the better option.
I set off at a good sprint, trying to get as far down the street as I could before they started pursuit. Sure enough, after just a few yards, the moan started, and the chase was on. They turned, almost as a group, and begin staggering toward me. I kept running. But then another group emerged from a grove of trees and from behind a building in the park. It was just a dozen or so, nowhere near as big a mob as the zombies at the wall, but with just a few lurching steps, they had effectively cut off the street ahead.
I stopped. Now I either had to turn right, into the park, and hope the trees held no more surprises, or turn back and jump into the river. I didn't like either.
"You there!" an amplified voice called. The zombies stopped their march toward me, and I looked around. Over the top of the high brick wall, two platforms appeared on either side of the gate, the kinds of platforms on scissor-type lifts that people used to paint tall buildings or clean their windows. On each platform, two men stood, together with the .50 caliber machine guns from the Humvees. On the platform to my right was the guy with the bullhorn. I hadn't seen people in weeks, and these were, obviously, an especially welcome sight.
The zombies were temporarily frozen. It was one of the many disadvantages of almost completely lacking a working intellect—they couldn't handle multiple threats at all, or change from one target to another easily. They looked at their enemies above the wall, then back at me, swaying uncertainly. I, too, was frozen, as I wasn't sure at all what I was supposed to do. There were still about two hundred zombies, fanned out now in a more or less crescent-shaped wall of rotting, grasping flesh, between me and the people.
"Start moving toward the gate," the guy with the bullhorn said. "We're going to get you."
He sounded confident, and their set-up indicated a good deal of planning and equipment, like they had done this before, but I still wasn't too enthusiastic about moving toward a mob of mindless cannibals. I took a few slow steps, and again, the zombies moved toward me. But then we both heard the gate rattle as it slid to one side.
Again, the zombies were confused, and many at the back turned toward the gate. I took a few more steps, and then a crowd of about twenty people came rushing out from the gate. Like the guy on the cherry picker, they seemed pretty disciplined and organized, letting out a loud "Arrrrrr!" as they charged the zombies. They looked like the crazy, post-apocalyptic bikers and villagers in The Road Warrior movie, all decked out with various kinds of impromptu armor—football pads, paintball and fencing masks, pieces of tires cut up and bound to their arms and legs as armor, hubcaps and garbage can lids for shields. They crashed into the zombies, wielding bats, clubs, machetes, axes, shovels—any hand-to-hand weapon that could deal a fatal blow to the head.
The zombies were now completely confused, and they began to fall back before the assault. I was impressed and grateful for the people's bravery, but I didn't see how they stood a chance of clearing a path.
Up on the cherry pickers, the two people who were not on the machine guns were swinging things at the end of a rope, the way you would a sling, but the objects were bigger, so they were using both arms, like in a hammer throw. "Set!" the guy on the bullhorn commanded, and they let go their projectiles, which flew over the crowd and crashed down slightly in front of me, one to either side. When they hit the ground, I heard loud popping, and then splashing sounds. I wasn't sure, but I started to catch on, so I stopped and took a couple steps back.
The people who had thrown the objects were now wielding bows with flaming arrows, and from where I was standing, it looked like they were aimed right at me. I also got a whiff of something I hadn't smelled in years, that smell you always associated with summer evenings, when Dad went out and lit the Kingsford in the backyard. I kept backing up as the zombies again advanced on me.
"Fire!" came the command from the guy on the cherry picker, and the arrows shot into the zombie crowd right in front of me on either side. I ducked down, brought my right arm across my face, and hoped these people knew what they were doing.
Chapter Three
When the arrows hit and ignited the lighte
r fluid, the hair on the back of my hand singed and curled in the heat and blast of the expanding fire ball. Unlike the zombies, I needed to breathe, and I staggered back a step to catch my breath as the flames receded slightly after the initial flare up. The people in the cherry pickers pressed the attack, throwing another pair of fuel bombs, redoubling the flames and driving me another step back.
Just a few feet closer to the centers of the two conflagrations, the zombies were faring much worse than I. With their dried-up flesh and hair, most of them were burning briskly, and their moaning now turned to screams as they flailed about in whatever it was they experienced as pain. It smelled like a cross between a barbecue and the seventh circle of hell.
Though horribly burned, many of them were still capable of motion, with their limbs still moving, even though scorched bones could now be seen through their burned clothes and flesh. But even the more hardy ones were losing their struggle to carry on the fight, as their eyelids had shriveled up in the first blast of flame, and their eyeballs looked like singed marshmallows, with sizzling goo running down their dried, cracked cheeks. They would walk into each other, or collapse to their knees, their burning hands clutching their faces in a slow agony that looked appallingly like a final supplication to the God who had made them, punished them, and was now punishing them again.
Between the edges of the two puddles of burning fuel, there were only a few zombies who had completely escaped the flames. I started walking toward them, as this was the gap in the midst of the two burning mobs that led to the gates. The first zombie to get close to me I shot in the face, then kicked him in the stomach and sent him crashing into the burning zombies to my right. Unfortunately, another burning one grabbed my gun arm and lunged for it with its mouth. I twisted away as I drove my knife into its mouth. It flailed around, still burning, with the tip of my knife stuck in the back of its throat. I wrestled my right arm out of its grip and stuck the barrel in its left eye. I fired as I pulled my knife out, and the zombie fell back into the burning crowd.
This altercation had slowed me down, and two more were closing in, one from my left and the other right in front of me. The one on my left was horribly cadaverous, even by zombie standards. It had been a very old woman before its death, and from the look of its torso, it had been run over and crushed by some large vehicle since then. It couldn't move its arms, all its bones were so crushed, so its two limbs just hung at its sides, swaying randomly as it walked. Its dress was torn, revealing the shriveled, dried flesh underneath, crisscrossed with feathery lines of dried blood and caked with dirt. Its insatiable maw kept coming nevertheless, and would keep on doing so no matter what.
The one in front of me, on the other hand, was a fairly robust male, with just the typical neck wound and blood stain down his shirt. I leveled the Glock at him and fired, sending him falling back into another zombie behind him. At almost the same time, I slashed the old zombie's throat as hard as I could with the serrated back edge of my knife. The blow spun her around and dropped her, with her neck severed almost all the way to the spine. She landed on her face, but her head bounced up and twisted around, so she was looking completely backward, up at me, before the head flopped back down on its side.
Even then, she started to pull her knees up under herself and struggle to rise. She'd be able to get up, doubtless, but not before I got out of there.
There were just a few more zombies between me and the people who had come out from the gates. I kept moving, but the zombie that the robust male had fallen on was getting up, just as another was coming at me from the right. I kicked the rising one in the head as I shot the standing one in the face. I was just a few feet now from rescue, when something grabbed my left wrist.
I turned and raised the Glock, but saw that I was aiming too high. I was held by something less than four feet tall, what had been a little boy of six or seven. Its jugular was torn open on the left side, but there were no other marks on it. It was slowly bending its mouth toward my wrist, ignoring any danger I might pose in its obsession for human flesh, its only remaining goal or desire. I raised my left arm, lifting the child zombie off the ground even as it continued craning its neck, its bared teeth yearning for my arm.
Oddly enough, the color of this zombie's flesh was like that of milk, like all his blood had drained out when he died, but had not been replaced with the horrible putrefaction and discoloration that inevitably accompanied undeath, instead leaving him pristine and undefiled. Here was flesh without blood, but also flesh without decay. It was animal existence at its purest—deadly, unholy, and unstoppable.
I holstered the Glock and grabbed the horrible, beautiful thing by the throat as I wrenched my left arm free of its grip. I sheathed the knife and held the thing with both hands around its neck. It wouldn't have been so bad if I could've throttled it to end its eternally pitiable existence, letting it slip slowly into a merciful death, but zombie physiology wouldn't allow this. It didn't help that this thing in my hands was the same age as my youngest son last year. The only minuscule consolation was that he didn't look at me, but up at the sky, unblinking even though he stared right at the sun, his jaw still working in his hellish, animal hunger.
"Sorry" fell so far short of what was going on here and what I was feeling that I wasn't going to bother with it this time. "Damn you," I whispered instead, and I flung the little thing away from me and back into the flames. Damn who? The zombie? Me? God? The asshole who invented the disease that caused the dead to rise? What the hell, it looked like there was plenty of damnation to go around, so why not just damn us all together, Lord, in one big mass of suffering, with you as the King of it all. Unlike earlier that day, this time I really did feel nauseous.
Two of the people from the gate had reached me by this point. "Come on," one shouted, grabbing me by the shoulder, "let's get inside." I followed them dumbly through the gate as it rattled closed behind us.
* * * * *
Before me was a grassy area with several dozen people on it, as well as a few trees and some odd-shaped sculptures of metal and stone. It was enclosed by the brick wall behind us, which ran down to the river on the one side. To the right, meeting up with the wall, was the large building I had seen from outside. And about two hundred feet in front of me was another wall like the one behind us, again running from the building down to the river over there. The river was the fourth side of the enclosure.
The people who had brought me in were smiling and patting me, encouraged and pleased with their own work. But I was immediately met by a woman a little younger than I was, one who had not gone outside in the attack. Like everyone there, her garb was a hodgepodge of different outfits, but it definitely conveyed the sense of a scientist or doctor rather than a soldier—smiley-face hospital scrubs as pants, canvas loafers without socks, a stained man's dress shirt, and some kind of blue vest with pockets, sort of like the ones that greeters at Wal-Mart wear.
She looked me over. "Your arms, show me your arms," she said, not exactly gruffly, but definitely not friendly, either.
I rolled up my sleeves and showed my arms, turning them over, feeling very awkward and embarrassed. Nobody's hygiene had been what it should be since the dead rose, but you were still made aware of it at odd moments like this.
She had already moved on to my neck and torso, raising her eyebrows and looking down the front of my shirt, as well as tilting her head to see both sides of my neck. "No bites? You're sure you haven't been bitten?"
I knew she had to ask. After the initial outbreak, most people had been killed when someone in their group was bitten and they tried to take care of him, only to have him then rise as a zombie and attack the others. Almost all the hospitals were taken out in the first few hours because of that. And then once they realized how quickly it spread, people were faced with the awful burden of having to execute anyone who had been bitten. "No," I said, shaking my head, "nothing, I swear."
She kept looking me over, though she still didn't feel bold enough to tou
ch me in order to turn me around or lift my clothing. "No fever, chills, burning thirst, loss of appetite, vomiting?"
I kept shaking my head. "No, really."
"Open your mouth." I did. She winced. "Not the prettiest sight, but whose mouth is these days with no running water or toothpaste?"
She tried a different tactic. "Don't be afraid to tell us if you're sick, we won't send you back outside. We're not barbarians. We'll treat you humanely. We've quarantined people before. Some even pulled through."
"No they didn't," a voice behind me said. The guy who had been giving the orders on the bullhorn was walking up to us. He was big, not body-builder big, but a little taller than me, and he had obviously been in shape before months of tight rations and fighting off those things had whittled him down a bit. Now he just looked sort of gaunt and tenacious. He was about my age, late thirties, and dressed in the remnants of a military uniform, though I don't think the various parts matched or were from the same branch of the service.
Again, I didn't know much about the military or wars before the one we were in right then, and in this one we couldn't stand much on conventions. It was amazing and welcomed just to meet people who had a pulse. If they had themselves a little compound with a wall and some weapons and supplies, they could dress like the archbishop of Canterbury or flaming drag queens—or, what the hell, even both—it made absolutely no difference. Which meant, of course, that it never really did.
Dying to Live Page 3