Clickers vs Zombies

by J. F. Gonzalez

  In the panic that ensued Robert had been quick thinking. “Quick!” he’d said. “We need to get him downstairs.”

  Max had stepped forward and helped Sparky stand up. Sparky was stunned; he was breathing heavy, his eyes wide with shock and surprise. “Fucking shit, man, you see that? What the fuck was that?”

  “Come on,” Paul said. He’d approached Sparky to help Max.

  Robert sprang forward, knowing he had to act quickly. He turned to Paul. “Hang on to that,” he said, gesturing to the assault rifle. He turned to Sparky, who was more concerned with his bloody ankle than his weapons. “Let’s get some of this stuff off you and get you downstairs,” he said. He began pulling Sparky’s coat off—it was a large, blue denim coat that was loose and baggy.

  As he pulled the coat off, Sparky shrugged out of it, favoring his right leg. He handed the coat to Richard and turned his attention back to his ankle. “Fuck, man, look at that shit! What the fuck was that thing?”

  Richard quickly patted the coat down. There was a handgun stuffed in the inside left pocket and several clips of ammunition in the other pockets. Hoping he’d gotten them all, he urged Sparky forward. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Sparky said. If Sparky noticed that he no longer carried any weapons, he didn’t give any indication.

  Richard, Paul, and Max herded Sparky out of the room. As they moved past the girls, who were cowering in the hallway, Richard told them, “Follow us.”

  Sparky had talked on the way down. “Fucking little piece of shit bit my ankle! Did you see that? Damn!” He clearly favored his ankle, and he hobbled as quickly as he could, supported on either side by Richard and Max. Paul led the way, cradling the rifle.

  When they got to the first floor Paul glanced at Richard, who nodded. Paul had been on his wavelength. It was like that with them. They’d been best friends since they were eight years old. When Richard had wanted to build a fort in his backyard it had been Paul who’d agreed with him that they would not allow Carl Guran to join their club by suggesting they build their fortress in the large oak tree in Richard’s backyard. Carl was afraid of trees. Wouldn’t go near them for some reason. What kind of moron was afraid of trees for God’s sakes? Carl annoyed both of them in other ways, though; he wiped his runny nose constantly and left smears of snot on their comic books whenever they got together; he picked his nose; he picked his butt; he also played with himself in full view of everybody, even the girls. Richard and Paul had complained to their parents about Carl, but their mothers insisted he was harmless. “He’s just slow, honey,” Richard’s mom had told them. “He’s mentally handicapped. He can’t help it. Go easy on him, okay?” So they’d been forced to go easy on him for most things, but when it came to their clubhouse Richard had put his foot down. Richard didn’t want Carl to have access to the clubhouse at all. Neither did Paul. Each of them knew the other didn’t want to have anything to do with Carl, so Paul had casually suggested that Richard build the clubhouse in his tree. Problem solved.

  That simple nod was all it took. When they reached the basement door, Paul opened it and stepped aside to cover their entrance with the assault rifle. Sparky began to head down the stairs and then Richard gave him a hard shove the moment he entered the basement’s threshold. There was a startled, “What are you doing?” protest from one of the girls behind him, a startled yelp from Sparky, and then the gang-banger was crashing down the stairs and Paul shut the door and put his back to it. His eyes had been wide and panicked as they’d stared into Richard’s face.

  The fall didn’t kill Sparky. If anything, it had only made him mad. After cursing the five of them loud and vehemently, he’d limped back upstairs and started pounding on the basement door, shoving against it, trying to force it open. In the three minutes it had taken Sparky to muster the strength to come upstairs, Paul had nodded at Max and told him to go upstairs and drag down the bureau that was in one of the bedrooms in the apartment. It looked pretty sturdy. By this point, all five of them were on the same wavelength—Sparky had been bitten. He was going to turn into a zombie. Therefore, they had to isolate him before he turned.

  Except…Richard wasn’t so sure, When he paused to think about it. Yes, in movies and books it was the bite of a zombie that infected a person, but was that really happening in real life? Hadn’t they seen zombies outside that showed no signs of being bitten? Frowning, he decided to keep his uncertainty to himself.

  “You putos,” Sparky said, his voice growing weak. “I fucked myself up going down those stairs. Look at all this fucking blood. You better open the door. I need help.”

  Max and Mary had gone upstairs for the dresser. Melody had been too stunned by everything; she was still trying to process what had happened just a few minutes ago upstairs with the zombie baby. By the time Sparky had come around and was trying to shove the basement door open—why couldn’t there have been a way to lock it from the outside as well as the inside?—they had gotten the bureau down the first set of stairs and were trying to maneuver it around the landing. That was when Dad had called.

  Richard had to call out to Max and Mary to help him and Paul hold the door shut while he fumbled for his cell phone. Sparky’s threats had given way to begging and pleading. Finally, his voice faltered, and he simply sobbed. Then, even that ceased.

  “Think he’s dead?” Paul asked.

  Richard nodded.

  Max frowned. “What’s wrong with you, Richard?”

  “What if we’re wrong? What if it wasn’t the bite that—”

  It was at that point when Sparky’s corpse began beating the door.

  “I can smell you out there, meat!” It cackled madly. It’s strength had seemed enormous, more so than any normal human’s. It had taken all five of them to hold the door closed as the zombie pushed at it, inching it open a bit at a time. Richard had managed to tell his dad the building they were trapped in was the third apartment building down from where the street was fenced in, then the connection was broken. He was positive he’d heard him. It sounded like Dad was on the way.

  “Dad’s coming,” Richard had said as he joined them in holding the door to the basement closed.

  “Oh, thank God,” Melody had said.

  “What are we gonna do?” Max asked. His face was slick with sweet. His once cocky-attitude had deteriorated in the last sixteen hours or so. He looked absolutely lost at sea.

  “We can’t hold him in there forever,” Mary said. She was leaned back into the door with her brother, huffing and puffing with the exertion.

  “Listen to her, meat sacks!” the zombie cackled. Its voice was rough and gritty and not human. “You can’t hold me in here forever. Soon, you will grow weaker. And as you weaken, I will get stronger! When I get out of here, I will dine on your bone marrow and your intestines. I will make a necklace out of your spine!”

  And just like that Richard and Paul locked eyes with each other again and knew what they had to do. They nodded. Richard took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. The thing down there was right—they couldn’t keep it shut down there forever. They were already starting to get tired. If Dad didn’t get here soon, it would break free and they would all become legions of the dead.

  Paul shifted his weight on the door a little to the right, closer to the hinges. Melody took up the slack and he gripped the assault rifle, keeping the barrel pointed to the floor. He motioned to Richard. “Give me another clip,” he mouthed. Richard had grabbed Sparky’s jacket, which he’d set on the floor near the basement door. He pulled out a black magazine that was fully loaded and handed it to Paul.

  “What’s happening?” Mary asked. She was starting to break down as the zombie grew stronger and began to hammer at the door with greater strength. The door was edging open more. Soon they wouldn’t be able to keep it closed—it would slip a hand through, giving it a greater chance of escape.

  Paul ejected the clip in the rifle and slapped in t
he fresh one Richard had given him. For a guy who’d never handled a gun in his life, Paul was doing okay. With the fresh clip in place, Paul nodded at Richard. “Guys, on three I want you all to stop holding the door closed and get out of the way.”

  The zombie cackled downstairs. “Yes! Stop holding the door closed! Let me through!”

  Mary looked confused. “We can’t let it out, are you crazy?”

  “Do as he says, Mary,” Richard said, his voice stern.

  Mary turned to Richard and saw something in his face that helped her get the message. She nodded, turned to her brother with a sense of resolve.

  “Okay,” Paul said. He stepped away from the door carefully and quickly positioned himself across from the door. The others had to work that much harder to keep the door to the basement from opening. They pushed and strained against the force applied against it, but with Paul no longer there that was becoming much harder. The door inched open further. Max yelped as the zombie’s fingers waggled between the edge of the door and the jam.

  Paul raised the assault rifle. He set the stock against his shoulder and placed his right eye slightly behind the scope, taking aim. “On three,” he said.

  Richard nodded and he knew the others had gotten the message. The zombie cackled again behind the door. “On three I get to eat you! And more of my brothers will be let forth from the Void to occupy your miserable sacks of flesh!”

  “One…” Paul began.

  The door inched open more.

  “Two…”

  The pressure from the basement suddenly ceased and the door was slammed shut. Richard felt a momentary sense that the creature had a trick up its sleeve, but then he realized that maybe it was just anticipating what came next.

  “Three!”

  Richard, Max, Mary, and Melody scrambled away from the door, darting to either side of it. For a moment nothing happened.

  Then the door was shoved open quickly. It banged against the wall and Sparky was there, his eyes blazing with a presence that Richard saw for a brief moment. Despite being the eyes of the undead, there was a sense of intelligent malevolence in them. Richard saw its brief grin and that grin turned quickly to surprise as Paul opened fire.

  The gunshots propelled the zombie down the basement steps, where it clattered to the bottom with a rough cry. Paul stepped toward the doorway, aiming the rifle down the stairs. Melody called out from beside him. “Did you get it?”

  From the basement, a mad cackle: “You need to learn how to aim correctly, ese!”

  “You want me to aim correctly?” Paul muttered as he sighted on the zombie downstairs. “Fine. How about this?” He let out a series of shots that clattered in the condemned building. The sound of the rifle going off was enormous—his ears were still ringing from the earlier encounter with the zombie baby upstairs. Despite the enormity of it he could still hear the zombie cackling madly downstairs. Amid the barrage of gunfire, the laughter was cut off. “Got you, motherfucker!”

  Richard’s ears were ringing. He took a cautious step away from the wall to get a better look at the doorway leading into the basement. Paul took a step back, giving them all a better view. For the first time since their ordeal had begun last night, Paul had a sense of victory. “Took care of that.”

  They crowded close to him and peered down. The zombie was lying at the foot of the stairs. One leg was splayed out at an unnatural angle from one of its falls down the stairs. A large chunk of flesh had been ripped out of the right side of its abdomen. Its head was nothing but a mass of shapeless flesh. It looked like a pumpkin that had been smashed repeatedly with a hammer.

  “Holy fuck,” Max said, his voice hollow.

  They stood there staring down at the zombie for a moment. Richard found it hard to feel guilty about what they’d done. The man they’d met yesterday who’d once inhabited that body, Sparky, had died the moment the zombie baby bit his ankle. They didn’t kill him. Maybe they’d set him free. Richard hoped so.

  “Sparky knew the plank on the cellar window was loose,” Mary said. “Why didn’t he just go out that way and come in through another door or something?”

  “Maybe there are still some of those lobster things outside,” Richard said.

  “What do we do now?” Max asked. His eyes were transfixed on the dead zombie.

  “We can’t go back down there,” Melody said. She turned away, looking like she was going to be sick. “There’s no way…” She looked at her brother, at Mary and Paul. “We can’t hide ourselves back down there! Not now, with that thing down there.”

  “It’s dead, Melody,” Richard said.

  “I know it’s dead but what if there’s another one in here!” She said, her voice shrill.

  Richard held his hands up to quiet her down. “Take it easy, Mel.”

  Mary looked just as scared as Melody. She wouldn’t leave her brother’s side. “She’s right,” Mary said. “Even if it’s not going to come back, it’s still dead. It’ll rot.” Her face screwed up in disgust.

  Richard nodded at Paul. “We should stay up here.”

  “And what?” Max asked. “What if some of them heard the gunshots?”

  “Oh God,” Melody said. She turned a fear-stricken face to Richard. She grabbed at his shirt, her knuckles white. “Dad’s coming, right? He did say he was coming—”

  “He’s coming,” Richard said quickly. He put his arm around her, regarding the others in the enclosed space in the first floor hallway. “He knows where we are. I told him what street we’re on, what the building looks like. He’s on his way.”

  “Should we wait here?” Max asked.

  “It’s the only thing we can do,” Paul murmured.

  For a moment all was silent. The ringing in Richard’s ears made it hard to listen for what was going on outside. He didn’t like the idea of being on the ground floor with the doors and windows all boarded up, unable to see outside. At least if they went upstairs, even to the second floor, they could peer out one of the windows and have a chance to see what might be going on.

  “We should go back upstairs,” Richard said.

  “What if there’s another one of those things up there?” Melody asked.

  “We’ll conduct a more thorough search this time,” Richard said. He gestured to Paul. “Paul’s got that rifle. And we also have this.” He took his arm off Melody’s shoulders and rooted through the jacket Sparky had left behind. When he pulled the handgun out a collected gasp rose from the group. Richard held the gun with the barrel pointed up. “I don’t know shit about guns, but I know enough to keep it pointing away from you all. And that all it takes to stop these things is to point and shoot.”

  “You have to shoot them in the head,” Max said.

  “Yeah,” Richard agreed. He held on to the handgun, slightly apprehensive about how to handle it but knowing that he had to. There was a button on the side of it—that had to be the safety. It was probably on; it had to be, otherwise, Sparky wouldn’t have just carried it so casually in his jacket pocket like that, right?

  As if reading his thoughts, Max said, “Are you sure you’re comfortable with that thing?”

  “Fuck no, I’m not comfortable,” Richard said. “But it is what it is. What other choice do we have?”

  There was no answer to that.

  Max crept to the front door of the building and put his ear against the door. After a moment of silence he turned to the others. “Sounds quiet,” he said.

  “What do we do if we have to get out of here in a hurry?” Mary asked.

  “The place is boarded up from the outside,” Paul said.

  “The back didn’t look boarded up,” Richard said. “Maybe the back door…”

  They turned to the back door at the very end of the hall.

  “I didn’t think there was a back door,” Paul said.

  “I didn’t either,” Richard said, “but there it is. We must have missed it when we first came up here. It is kind of dark back here.”

  “This do
or is along the same alleyway as that basement window we used to get in here, isn’t it?” Max asked.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty certain it is,” Richard answered.

  “I only remember seeing windows boarded up,” Melody said. “Not a door. What if it’s a false door and doesn’t open to anything?”

  “You mean like a wall?” Richard said. “I don’t think so. I think we were just too rushed and panicked to notice it.”

  “Okay, what if it’s unlocked and we manage to get it open. What if there’s something out there?” Mary asked.

  “The apartments in the back,” Paul began, heading for the stairs, “their windows should look down on that alley. Let’s take a look.”

  Cradling the rifle as if he’d suddenly gained military experience, Paul edged toward the stairs. “Come on,” he said. “I’m positive we won’t run into any other surprise. That zombie baby that got Sparky, we missed it due to its size and the fact that it was a baby. If there were others in here, we would’ve known by now.”

  Richard realized Paul was right. If there’d been even one adult zombie in this building, it would have been camped outside the door to the basement since last night. “He’s right,” Richard said. “We should move upstairs. We can watch all corners of the building from any of those apartments. We’ll be able to see Dad when he shows up.”

  This seemed to boost all their spirits. Max nodded vigorously. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

  With Paul leading the way and Richard bringing up the rear, they headed upstairs to the second floor.

  TEN

  Mt. Shasta, California

  “Jesus,” Michele muttered as they drove into town.

  Clark eased the car forward slowly, weaving in and around the carnage. Mount Shasta rose over fourteen-thousand feet above them, deceptive in its beauty, for nestled at its feet was absolute devastation. Michele glanced around, but everywhere she looked, she saw one horrific scene after another. A sign for the Mercy Medical Center had a bloody handprint on it. Another sign for the Mt. Shasta Ski Park had been splattered with someone’s intestines. Carrion birds picked at the still-wet morsels. Michele couldn’t tell if the birds were alive or dead. Burning cars and buildings spewed smoke into the sky, and bodies littered the streets and sidewalks. Some of the corpses still moved—zombies, lacking legs, suffering severed spinal cords, or having their mobility hampered by other injuries. Other corpses lay still, each one having suffered some form of head trauma.