Clickers vs Zombies

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Now it was ten a.m. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke. Wherever it was coming from, it was strong enough to seep into the basement.

  “If shit’s on fire, it might spread this way,” Max said, his voice low, humbled. Last night’s verbal dress down had taken him down a peg or two.

  “Maybe we should head upstairs and see where it’s coming from,” Richard suggested.

  Sparky was standing at attention cradling his rifle, looking up at the ceiling as if trying to see through it to the deserted street outside. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

  They headed up the stairs with Sparky in the lead. After getting the door open, they moved slowly down the first floor hall to the staircase that led upstairs. It wasn’t as dark up here as it was in the basement, and the windows that looked out to the street were still boarded up. They headed up to the third floor quietly and once in the clean apartment they moved to the windows that overlooked the street below.

  “Well, something’s on fire, that’s for sure,” Sparky said.

  Amid the typical blue sky Southern California was known for, there were big splotches of dark smoke that were drifting from the east. It was hard to tell where the fire originated from unless they looked out a window on the other end of the building. Paul exited the apartment and headed to the apartment opposite this one, which was sparsely furnished with rotting furniture and bore the evidence that squatters had taken temporary residency. “Wow! You guys should see this!”

  The others left the apartment and entered the unit Paul had drifted into. Paul was standing in what had presumably been the bedroom, looking out the large window that looked out over San Pedro to the north and Lomita and Long Beach to the south. About ten miles to the distant south, in what Richard was positive was Harbor City and North Long Beach, the oil refinery that was located just south of the 405 freeway was on fire.

  “Holy fuck, will you look at that,” Richard breathed.

  “If Dad can drive up here to get us, how’s he going to get past that?” Melody asked. She looked transfixed by the fire. From this distance it appeared something had bashed into one of the large oil tankers—that giant Clicker, perhaps? Flames shot hundreds of feet into the air, billowing thick clouds of black smoke. The smoke was so great in size and density that it practically covered the entire South Bay and South Central Los Angeles area. It was now starting to drift southward toward the beach, which was evident by the tendrils of smoke that was beginning to seep over Sunken City.

  “He’ll get here,” Richard said, trying to soothe his sister’s fears.

  “I hope so,” Melody said.

  From behind them, Sparky was messing with his cell phone. “Still no service,” he said. He looked up from his phone, his features solemn. “I hope your old man can get up here.”

  Richard was thinking about this when something fell to the floor in the room behind them.

  Everybody froze. Richard’s heart was lodged in his throat. His belly felt like lead. “What was that?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Sparky said. He was instantly alert. He cradled his assault rifle, his finger brushing the trigger guard.

  Melody grabbed Richard’s arm again, melting against him. With the four friends huddled in close formation, Sparky stepped out of the room to see what had made that sound.

  Foothill Boulevard, California

  When Augustus finally regained consciousness, the first thing he noticed was the sunlight on his face. It had been night when he blacked out.

  He sprang up quickly, expecting something to come at him. Then he realized where he was and what had happened. His breath was held in his lungs and he released it in a long sigh as he sagged in the plush leather seat of the limousine.

  God, I’ve been conked out all night, he thought. He looked out the tinted windows of the vehicle, noting that the street was completely deserted now. The chaos that had erupted yesterday was no more. The zombies, the crab-monsters, all were gone. He wondered why the limo driver hadn’t come back for him. The zombie had unlocked the doors from outside when it took Marion. Why not come back for him and do the same?

  Marion…

  Augustus whined, low and mournful. His body trembled as he thought of her. His ears began to ring and his face felt flushed. He put his head between his legs and breathed deeply until the spell had passed.

  “Oh, Marion,” he sobbed. “I am so sorry…”

  Augustus inspected his surroundings more closely. His senses were garbled, not on track. They felt sluggish. The last thing he remembered was Marion being dragged off into a grove of trees by one of those zombies. Augustus had rushed to her rescue but had been driven off by another zombie. He’d seen what they were doing to people in that grove of trees. They’d been torturing those poor people…raping them.

  Augustus shook his head in disgust. How could the dead rape the living? It didn’t make sense. What was powering these creatures? In all his studies on past life regressions and the afterlife, the one thing he learned was that the soul always yearned for peace. It didn’t seek death and destruction, the pain and suffering and degradation of other living things. So what was going on here? He remembered his intuition from the night before, that another entity was inside the corpses. What could it have been? The only thing that came to mind was an explanation his daughter, Susan, would have been quick to supply. Demons.

  As Augustus looked out the window trying to gauge his surroundings, he tried to put everything in perspective. He didn’t subscribe to a Judeo-Christian worldview like his daughter, but he did believe in negative supernatural forces. People like Susan would call those forces demons, but Augustus and people who practiced New Age spirituality preferred to think of them as negative energy forces. The amount of psychic energy a human being expels and holds is greatly influenced by that individual’s personality and mood, by the acts they commit, the way they carry their lives. People prone to committing horrible acts or dwelling on the negative often exude bad energy. People who worked at positive things often exuded positive energy. Augustus had always lectured that it was important to live clean, and to always portray a positive energy. When a person died, that positive energy—the spirit—could go forth and work its magic or it could be reborn in another human being. However, if a person with negative energy died, the life force lived on as a malignant force. Augustus had been called in as a consultant on so-called haunted house cases. Most of those cases had to do with the negative energy—the spiritual residue of a person who had lived an unhappy or negative life—remaining in the house.

  Truly evil people, however, sometimes left a psychic energy that was very malignant. This energy could wreak havoc on the living in a way that led most people to believe that demons were present.

  Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t just a huge giant case of bad psychic energy. This was something far worse.

  Augustus reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He pulled it out and saw that it was still turned on. There was no cellular signal. Cursing, he put it back in his pocket and moved toward the front of the vehicle. The partition that separated the driver from the passenger was still open and the front seat was empty, the doors shut and presumably locked. Augustus looked out the front windshield at the empty street in front of him. His first thought was for his children. Were they okay? Were they able to get out of California? Was this mass chaos and destruction limited to California or was it global? Augustus was pretty sure it was global; he was beginning to remember the news reports yesterday afternoon as they were speeding down Foothill Boulevard toward the airport. Whatever had happened, it had happened fast. And those things…

  Clickers. That’s what the media had called them. Thinking about the path of destruction they’d carved, August was lucky to be alive.

  Augustus cast another look around and gripped the handle of the door. Marion, he thought. I’ve got to find Marion.

  He opened the door to the limousine and stepped outside cautiously. The first
thing that hit him was the smell. It was the stench of smoke from a dozen fires underlined with a chemical scent and something else…

  Death.

  Augustus turned to the grove of trees where those things had taken Marion. That area seemed deserted now. He stood there for a moment, trying to let his senses guide him. Right now he could feel nothing. He detected no vibration, no negative energy. All he felt was a vast emptiness, yet at the same time he sensed something was out there, something old, so old it defied human perceptions of time; it was older than anything in the universe, and it was powerful and it knew all worlds, had amassed an army of similar beings under its power, and it was here on this world to overtake it, to overrun it, to destroy it, and when it was finished it was going to move on to the next world, no, the next version of this world, and it had to be stopped, it had to be taken down, had to be—

  Augustus began heading toward the grove of trees. The heat from the fires made the temperatures even hotter in this mid-July morning. Supposed to be one hundred and one today, Augustus thought, but it feels even hotter. He looked south toward Los Angeles, which was covered in a thick cloud of smoke.

  “First things first,” he muttered. “Look for Marion in that grove of trees. You have to brace yourself for the fact that she might be dead, or she might be one of those things now. If so, you have to get back to the house. Get behind the wheel of that limo and head back to Malibu. Hole up there.”

  Surely there had to be some form of government still around. Didn’t he read somewhere that in the event of some catastrophic event key government officials could retreat to hidden warrens and tunnels beneath Washington DC? Somebody had to be down there now, maybe some skeleton government. Surely plans were already being made to stop this carnage. In fact, the military was probably already engaging in battle with them now and…Augustus shook his head.

  “Engaging in battle?” He was aware that he was speaking out loud again, but he didn’t care. “Where did that phrase come from? You’re starting to lose it, old man. You’ve never had the slightest interest in the military and now you’re tossing around military terms in your conscious mind as if you’re a four-star Colonel.”

  At that thought, Augustus grinned. Maybe at some point he was a four-star Colonel. After all, he could have been one in another life, right?

  He continued on toward the grove of trees. He ignored the smears of blood on the grass, the scraps of bloody clothing that littered the bushes, the trees. He noted that there were no dead bodies lying around. Either they’d been consumed by the Clickers or wandered on as zombies in search of other prey. Or maybe both. Many of the trees were withered and blackened. Several had fallen to the ground, or leaned with splintered, blackened trunks. A few were nothing more than charred stumps. He remembered the black Clicker from the night before. It had been spraying the trees with some sort of venom that had acted as a defoliant. Some of the zombies had been sprayed with the venom and had melted, which the Clicker had eaten. He was mindful not to touch any of the vegetation, and watched where he stepped.

  As Augustus moved deeper into the ruined undergrowth he couldn’t help but think about Marion. He felt himself getting emotional; she was most likely dead, melted from the corrosive venom of that black Clicker and devoured like soup, or her body was a shell, being used by one of those creatures. The thought of this overwhelmed him, stabbed him with grief. Augustus paused in his trek and leaned against a tree for support. What if I can’t find her? He thought. What if she’s really gone?

  He couldn’t imagine life without Marion. They’d been together for fifty years. A lifetime. Memories of their youth flashed in his memories. The early years of their marriage. Their first born child and how happy they’d been. Sure, they’d had some stressful times in their marriage—what relationship didn’t? But despite the bad times, they found strength in each other. They’d always had each other to lean on for support. And as the years had passed and the kids had grown from toddlers to elementary school aged, to being in high school, his career had taken off, and then Marion had joined him in the business and life had opened up far and wide for them. Their relationship had blossomed on so many levels. And through it all, they still managed to find time for each other. They had still gone on dates—the movies, dinner at their favorite restaurants, or just a quiet walk on the beach at sunset. Augustus still bought Marion a bouquet of flowers every Friday afternoon and presented them to her as if he were still courting her. And when they made love on those rare nights when nobody was pressuring them for something, whether it was for business or family, it was very much like making love to the eighteen-year old girl he’d fallen in love with he’d met in college. Slipping her clothes off to touch her bare skin, feeling her body pressed against his, the way it made him stiffen in arousal, it was still very much like being a young man again, touching her for the first time. Marion had made him feel young again every time they came together in love.

  Thinking about this made him think of a song his older son used to listen to. “Feels Like the First Time,” by a band called Foreigner. That was a lifetime ago, when George was in Junior High school and he would spend hours in his bedroom listening to albums by the likes of Styx and REO Speedwagon and Ted Nugent. Those albums, and the Foreigner record that was now playing in his head, had been on constant replay in their home back in the late seventies. Augustus hadn’t cared much for George’s choice in music, but he hadn’t discouraged it, either. Still, that song had spoken to him, and it spoke to him now as he stepped through the vegetation into a small clearing and stopped.

  Marion stood there, silhouetted in the morning sun that cast iridescent beams through the trees behind her. “Hello, Augie,” she said with a smile.

  Augustus felt the blood rush from his face. “Marion…”

  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Is that…is that really you?” Heart pounding, still aroused from the erotic day dreams he’d just entertained in his mind, he stepped forward.

  “Of course it’s me,” Marion said, her grin revealing bloody, broken teeth that Augustus failed to notice, he was so enraptured by the thought of seeing her. The thing that was Marion held her arms open. “Come, my darling. Fill me up. I’m yours.”

  “Oh Marion,” Augustus said. He was weeping. Tears blurred his vision as he stumbled to Marion, the love of his life, the center of his universe. Just a few moments ago he’d been torn at the prospect of living the rest of his life without her and now he didn’t have to face that moment. She was here and they could escape together, head back to the house in Malibu near the ocean, with its peaceful beachfronts and clean, brisk sea air, and they could hide out together until this negative energy spent itself.

  Augustus took her into his arms, embracing her, not even aware that pieces of her were missing, that his right hand was resting on the back of her bare rib cage which had been stripped of flesh. He wept and held his Marion close to him and he felt her fingers touch his belly as she loosened his trousers. He felt cool air on his buttocks as his trousers fell down to his knees and then she was grasping his hardness, and even then, Augustus did not notice when the flesh of his penis scraped against the bones of her bare fingers.

  “Let me have you,” Marion whispered in his ear.

  “Yes.” Augustus closed his eyes.

  And then they fell together and when Marion guided him into her and he began to love her, he didn’t even feel it as her teeth clamped down on his neck and bit down, tearing into his flesh. She coaxed him along, thrusting with her hips, and the last thing Augustus felt was that it felt so good, so wonderful, to be back in the arms of his lover, partner, and soul mate.

  Then his soul departed, and something else slid into his body. Slowly, the two corpses rose from their coupling and went in search of prey.

  Palos Verdes, California

  Dr. Alfred Post decided to try raising somebody on the Ham radio. Al had been involved in amateur radio since he was twelve years old. His call letters we
re K87R-RT3, and he’d been licensed since he was twelve years old. He was past president of the Los Angeles Ham Radio Operators club, and had been involved in all aspects of the hobby including radio teletype, Dxing, APRS, satellites, and everything in between. He also made an annual pilgrimage to Dayton, Ohio every May for Hamfest, a convention that drew radio enthusiasts from all over the world. It was at Hamfest where Al would talk to vendors and manufacturers, buy new equipment, get tips on upgrades, and learn about emerging technologies in the hobby.

  The power was out, but Al had spent the morning quietly getting his emergency generator running. It was humming along now, generating power to the radio equipment in the spare bedroom on the ground floor of the house. Janice had sat in the corner chair, afraid to leave his side as Al had worked at hooking things up. “Don’t know why I didn’t hook this stuff up sooner,” he said as he sat at his desk and began powering his system up. “I should have had this on yesterday but I was so caught up in things.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Janice said. She had gotten over her shock somewhat. Her brown, wavy hair hung limply about her face.

  “There” Al said. He dialed the tuner knob across the band, trying to pick up something. All he heard was dead silence across all channels.

  “Maybe you should give out your call signal,” Janice said. “Maybe we just aren’t receiving.”

  “Good point.” Al flicked another switch, then picked up the microphone. “This is K87R-RT3 broadcasting from Palos Verdes, California. Repeat, this is K87R-RT3 broadcasting from Palos Verdes, California.”

  Al repeated this for a few minutes. He moved the dial slowly across the band, hoping to pick up something, but all he received was silence.

  “Damn!” He leaned back, dejected.

  “Keep trying,” Janice said. “Just keep giving out our call signal. Somebody is bound to respond. I can’t imagine you’re the only Ham operator in the country left.”