by Bryan Way
“…I’m not movin’ her.”
“Look, I’m telling you… get out now before it’s too late.”
“Me and Anderson’ll decide when it’s safe… okay? We’re not leaving before that.”
“…Jeff…”
I hang up before he can argue further, and he doesn’t try calling back. As I lie on the cold tile and tune out the ringing bells, I try to reason a way out of this situation. It could easily be out of my control to a level that I can’t even begin to understand; the undead could start banging on that door at any moment, and we’d have to conceive of a method to escape with limited weapons in a tight space. My belief that we would make it doesn’t match up with the ripped ticket revealing that our fate is sealed in this little room.
Feeling unsafe, I get up and glance down at the first level through the heavily draped windows. Our encumbered marauders are slowly filling the primary exit as they filter in the building, shuffling toward the staircases like so many exhausted consumers after a particularly long and bleak Black Friday. I close the curtain to see Mel and Karen sleeping, Jake drifting off, and Anderson’s eyes drilling into the wall. I can only imagine what he thinks of the situation, though I have no desire to glean his opinion.
When I sit down next to Mel, she semi-consciously wriggles toward me in an effort to share my warmth, and though the move strikes me as innocent in nature, I feel no less violated by it. The feeling that follows is not unlike an anvil being hooked on my heart and dragging it to hell. The accompanying thought is as crisp and unadulterated as the embers of the sun cresting over the horizon: You killed Julia and found a replacement. I shake my head, but the thought won’t be dislodged.
Julia? Are you there? Are you angry? Please talk to me. I need you. It’s been so long… just give me a few words… I just need to hear your voice … you’re the phantom limb I want to haunt me forever. Please come back…
After a surging current of rage floods my veins, a tsunami of guilt and fear overtakes it, creating a gesticulating tide that manages to be both and neither, frustrating me from both screaming and crying. It would be so easy just to give up and die. The only guarantee of tranquility in death would come from putting a gun in my mouth with the barrel parallel to the ground and pulling the trigger. I’ve already been there.
Bullshit. It’s not as though there’s an unforeseen promise of things to come preventing me from taking this action, but it’s worth waiting at least a little longer. Before I can examine this notion any further, I get bored with myself, which may be a result of my persistent attempts at self-actualization, or because I’m incredibly tired. With a sea of anger and desperation raging in my body, I manage to let my thoughts devolve into a nonsense so absolute that I have no choice but to sleep.
“Grey… Grey!” Anderson’s shouting fades into my perception, but not before the stinging klaxons. My eyes refuse to open while my brain continues to hibernate, precluding my next question from coming out intelligibly.
“Where have… when…?”
“You’ve been asleep for an hour. They’re spread out enough we can get to the Humvee.”
“Gimme a second…”
Anderson leaves me for a moment, and then comes back.
“Grey, get up.”
“I said I need a second…”
“It’s been fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry…”
Mel is already awake, dousing her face under the faucet. When she’s done, I do the same as Anderson carefully and quietly opens the door to peek out. Within a few moments, all parties are prepared. The last step is waking Karen, a task assigned to Mel. As she does, Anderson pulls me aside.
“Grey, what do you think about cocktails?” He asks.
“…what?”
“They’re gathering around the alarm units, and we’ve got three Molotovs. I think we can clear a path.”
“How’d you get Molotovs?”
“…lab coats, beakers, rubbing alcohol…” He says, as though I should have expected it.
“… well, okay… I mean… won’t setting them on fire just piss them off?”
“I don’t think they get pissed… but I bet it’s pretty easy to be distracted when you’re on fire.”
“…good point.” I continue. “But… is this really necessary…?”
“A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow…”
“Patton, I know…”
“Hey… when I say that shit, I’m not talking about Command and Conquer. We screw this up, we die. Do you really want to wait and see if this gets worse?”
My reply comes in the form of popping a toothpick in my mouth. I turn and wave for the rest of the group to line up at the door, and as Anderson takes in a few deep breaths, I notice that Karen appears as though she could fall asleep at any second. Before I can voice this concern, Anderson yanks the door open and steps out. There are no Zombies in sight on either side, so Anderson waves for us to follow him. He peeks around the corner of the hall that leads to the stairs, and then holds his hand out. I walk up beside him to see about twenty bodies shuffling near the spot where he smashed the beaker. The moans from the obstructed stairwell rise above the alarms enough to suggest a full house. After a moment, Anderson pulls me back.
“…breezeway?” He asks.
“It’s blocked, that’s why we’re still here!”
“Where then?”
“Christ, I don’t know… isn’t there another staircase on the other side?”
“Perfect. The Molotov’ll bring ‘em in the front… when they thin out around the Humvee we get it started and get out.”
“Toss it.”
The flame in Anderson’s hand is produced quickly enough to let me believe it came out of nowhere, and suddenly the cloth wick is ignited and he’s running down the hall. The Zombie crowd near the stairwell is dense enough to keep the exit propped open, so Anderson banks the beaker off the door before it pops and spews a shimmering deluge of flame over the undead. Like ants in a colony filling with water, they scramble in every direction, catching each other on fire moments before the sprinkler system activates with a husky pop and the hammering of alarm bells to accompany the already irritating klaxons.
This is funny for a moment, but then my clothes, skin, and bones feel as though they’re being slashed away by a fire hose of icy sulfuric acid. Anderson runs past me toward the other staircase and I follow. I’ve never been exposed to ice-cold water in a near-freezing environment; my limbs start numbing up, making every move so difficult that I get a warm rush of fear from the sensation that I’m experiencing a nightmare. Someone in our group screams in frustration, which only compounds the effect. It’s probably Karen; in her weakened state, she’s probably in agony.
Anderson and I lead the way as Mel wraps her arms around Karen, and when we get to the end of the hall, we’re forced to turn left. A hundred feet or so ahead of us, the breezeway leads off the right. There is no other stairwell. “Grey?!” Anderson shouts. I grab Jake and slog forward. “Just go!” I think another wave of panic rushes through my veins as I imagine having to fight in this state, but it strikes me as common sense that the undead would be just as encumbered as we are.
At the breezeway junction, I look left to see a wet mob of the undead banging around in the darkness with flames dancing about in diminishing streaks as the sprinklers fulfill their function. Once we get halfway across the breezeway, I discover that this idiotically under-planned ruse is working better than we thought; the activity seems to have drawn the bodies from the adjacent building toward the stairwell, and the undead outside are abandoning the Humvee to join.
Anderson takes on the first corpse that pops around the corner, and when the second one grabs him, I return the favor and sling it to the floor as Anderson finishes off his victim. Despite not being able to feel my hands, I’m grateful I can still close and open them with sufficient force to defend myself. Anderson strikes the next one and goes down with him, slipping on the increasi
ngly flooded floor. Following a rage-fueled groan, he belts the beast’s skull into the tile with enough force to send bone fragments swimming through the bloody water. He pushes himself off the twitching husk, and when he stomps on its skull, the remaining mess splatters like a punted gelatin mold.
Gagging, I trudge past him to the stairwell, finding a few of our antagonists headed up. A simple kick sends them flailing down toward the next landing. I grab the railing on the inside and avoid their groping hands as I swing myself toward the next set of steps, and, to my surprise, land on a walking corpse. Retaining my grip on the handrail saves me from cracking my skull on the steps, fierce footwork stops me from being assimilated, and my friends thwart the attack from behind. Anderson tries to get at my victim, but I beat him to the punch with the trench knife and watch the dark blood mix with the water cascading down the steps.
“Move it, Mozart…” Anderson mutters, I assume equating my fixation with the blood as par with savantism. Soaked to the bone, I stumble down to the next landing, finding a child dressed in a toque and snow-bib clawing his way forward. “Heads up!” Anderson shouts, delivering a killing stroke that sends his victim down the steps behind me. I slide out of the way just as her neck impacts the landing with the echo of a corn cob being snapped in half.
The child continues crawling forth as I blink at the water falling from the rafters. For some reason, my only reaction is to put my boot on his shoulder and push him back. A moment later, Mel drops down and destroys his neck, and I look away before she can finish him off. Anderson steps over the useless corpse and takes on the next comer as I pick myself up with some difficulty and continue down to the first floor. Once we’re beneath the steps and shielded from the sprinkler, Anderson wipes the water off his brow.
“How’d we set off all the sprinklers?!” I shout.
“…must be a deluge system… no idea why they’d need it…”
“The chemicals in the labs?”
“Who cares?”
The opening of the door to the outside introduces me to a fresh hell of frozen temperatures, tempting me to wait inside and usher the others out first. “Contact light!” Anderson calls out in front of us. Once Mel makes it through the door with Karen, I stumble forth and look left, seeing a throng of corpses clawing their way up the hill toward the back entrances. “CONTACT HEAVY!” Anderson shouts; I turn to the right, where Rich was counter-sniping only a few days before, and find the entire hill covered in a seething blanket of mobile corpses.
“Head to the parking lot, I’m right behind you!” Anderson shouts. His vague reasoning strikes me as unimportant, so I lead Jake, Mel, and Karen past the entrance toward the drainage ditch. The Humvee starts behind us, and I turn to see an impressive flame emanating from the driver’s side window. Anderson tosses another Molotov toward the lobby, sending out an amorphous blob of fire that sets a dozen of the beasts ablaze. Tires squeal as I continue forth, stopping in time to see a few stragglers exiting the building.
When the Humvee rushes up beside us, Mel grabs the door before I can react. Jake ushers Karen in on one side before taking shotgun, and I pile in behind Mel, not having enough time to shut the door before Anderson screams off along the pavement. One of our would-be assailants grabs hold of the rear driver’s side door and hangs on despite our speed and trajectory. I kick his jaw and send him spiraling underneath the rear tire, pulling the door shut as I juggle my katana sheath in an effort to reach my pistol.
“Hang on…” Anderson mutters, not giving us enough time to obey as the vehicle swings left violently enough to cram Mel and me together. His hit-and-run strategy is enough to create several undead speed-bumps as he banks hard to the right and liberally applies his foot to the gas pedal. Several more artful dodges and corpse-displacing thumps pockmark our voyage to the street, but Anderson finally emerges at the top of the hill where the horde is significantly thinner. Try as they might to follow us, we easily pull into neutral ground and speed off toward the high school.
“Jesus, that was fun…” Anderson muses poetically.
“Maybe next time you want to hit a few more?” Mel asks.
“I dunno… maybe next time we don’t make it out instead… sound good to you?”
Mel shuts up and returns her attention to Karen. Like the rest of us, Jake seems to be empowered by our exit, but he is the only one to verbalize his satisfaction with a few exaggerated squeals of delight. An awkward silence follows, and after another minute or so, the only sound in the cab is Karen’s erratic coughing, which is thankfully directed into her shoulder.
As our silent return continues, Mel lets out a dissatisfied groan and rests her head on my shoulder. Just as it lands, I can feel Jake’s icy glower cut through the freezing air. I’m too exhausted, wet, and cold to give a damn, so I grasp Mel’s arm and do nothing to alter the predicament. Anderson calls for Rich to intercept us when we are roughly a minute away, and we’re treated to the sight of him and Mursak dispatching a few corpses on the lawn when we arrive.
When I step out of the Humvee, my first order of business is to remove my trench coat and wring it out. I’ll likely do the same with the rest of my clothes before donning new ones, and thanks to our group dinner at the college, a hot shower is now the only thing that stands between me and my bed. I’m disabused of this notion once Rich finishes dragging the corpses into a pile and trudges over with a look that suggests he intends to spend one long, rancid breath blowing us clean. As he approaches, he watches Mel and Jake guide Karen inside.
“Hey Rich…” I start.
“Don’t give me that… what do you think you’re doing?”
“…I’m wringing out my trench coat.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wet… see that? Water.”
“I see it, prick… what happened?”
“Hey Rich…” Anderson mutters, slamming the door shut. “Save it. We’re fuckin’ tired and we’re not listenin’ to your bullshit.”
I’ve never been more thankful for Anderson’s bluster.
“Really? Well I’m sick of your bullshit. Karen’s sick, and you’re fucking around in DC cubed…”
“Not like we were taking classes…” I interject.
“Spare me…”
“Hey!” Anderson shouts, arresting our attention. “Did you want to wait around for someone else to get shot?”
“Don’t give me that… you went there to make sure we got ‘em all and get supplies. I don’t know what else you’re up to, but it wasn’t worth risking her life.”
“Are you kidding me?” I start. “I can’t flip a switch without you telling me I’m doing it wrong… I mean… she’s here, isn’t she?”
“I don’t have a problem with your results… it’s your methods…”
“Our methods get results!” I shout. “I could give a shit if you disagree. We go out for supplies, run scouting missions… all you do is piss and moan… instead of complaining after we’re done, why don’t you say something first?!”
“You don’t fucking listen! Ever! I get it, you know… you two are friends… tellin’ me my say doesn’t matter because I’m outvoted. God forbid you get outvoted… you just slither out of it. Tell me… is another box of bullets worth sacrificing Karen? Let me guess… you analyzed that compromise. Got it down to a number. Something tells me you weren’t thinking about a sick person… who can barely walk… trying to fight one of those things off. But that’s okay. I’m sure she thinks it’s worth dying… so you can get results.”
“Nothing like that ever happened.” Anderson says.
“Sure it has… but the dead don’t complain.” Rich looks at me before he continues. “You may think you’re smart… but clever is not wise. If you don’t know the difference, try asking Julia.”
“…you better not be serious…” I start.
“Tell me, Jeff… you still think it was worth going in that hospital?”
I’m rushing at Rich before I have a chance to stop myself. Thank
fully, Anderson does it for me, wrapping up my arms as I dig in my feet for leverage. Rich shakes his head, taking the opportunity to head inside before the situation escalates any further. “Damn right the hospital was worth it…” Anderson grumbles. Before we head inside, he reaches into his backpack and hands me a bundle of wallets secured together with a rubber band. I spit out my toothpick.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Wallets… from the guys at DC cubed.”
“…why?”
“I dunno… maybe you can figure something out about them. So… I’m not wrong… Rich is being a fuckrag?”
“That might not be a harsh enough word.”
Anderson grins as he peels off toward the entrance, removing and shaking out his sopping jacket. I follow his lead, idiotically failing to realize that everyone else in our sortie had a shower as his or her first priority. Karen goes first, followed by Mel, Jake, Anderson, and then me. It was worth the wait; though I hadn’t previously given much credence to ranking showering experiences, this one belongs in the all-time top five. My mood is almost spoiled by bumping into Rich on the way upstairs, but we’re both content to ignore each other.
When I return to my bedroom, I find Mel sleeping in my bed again. The sight is both irritating and nullifying; I don’t like that she feels comfortable invading my personal space, but I’m also not certain that I care. Rather than dwell on it, I invite the comfort and warmth of having another body in bed next to me. Without any hesitation, I leap beneath the covers and bask in the familiar scent of my warm sheets, curling myself up in anticipation of a beautiful sleep.
12-31-04, FRIDAY
I wake up with Mel draped over me. I don’t feel like I’ve moved since I passed out, but I don’t remember even touching her. Mel’s mouth is hanging open over a dried puddle of saliva on her pillow. The image is amusing in a decidedly familial way, making me roll over in the sort of warm comfort I could almost describe as pastoral.