When They Come

by Jason Sanchez

  He used every ounce of strength and looked at his vulnerable friend.

  He looked out the window and pulled the trigger.

  Bang

  The deafening sound of the gun caused Jason to stir a little bit again.

  Dave looked down and had to hold in the nausea he felt. The man’s head looked like a split watermelon, bits and pieces of him stained the walls, as well as Dave’s #1 grandpa shirt.

  He sighed heavily and walked over the zombie that bit the man. He noticed it was motionless with a big hole in it’s head.

  “Guess those video games paid off, Jay”, Dave muttered. Finding no need to waste another shell, he looked at his best friend lying on the floor.

  “Come on, Jay, wake up. Please.” He knelt beside him. “Wake up. We can’t stay here too long.”

  He began to sob quietly.

  “Please, wake up. I-I can’t do this alone. Please, wake up.”

  He knelt beside his friend, despite the shuffling noises that were closing in on them.

  Over the Deep End

  Matt cautiously approached the source of the noise, going slowly down the fire escape.

  “I wonder if I could survive a fall from here”, he thought to himself. He briefly thought of jumping over and ending this madness. He turned his head and decided to keep going.

  He heard a gentle tapping at a window below him. He had his weapon in tow, ready to strike at whatever it was.

  When he arrived, he had found an emaciated young woman, trapped in what appeared to be a bathroom. There was a shower rod holding the door shut, and what looked like piles of feces scattered around. The shower curtain was bunched up in the tub, looking like a makeshift bed.

  When she saw Matt, her eyes opened wide and she let out a loud and piercing scream. She began to bang on the window with her open palms. Matt looked at her, making sure there were no bite marks.

  He held a finger to his lips, trying to get her to quiet down. Matt had spent so long trying to be as quiet as possible and this was the loudest source of noise he had heard in a while.

  Her noise brought about the realization of Matt’s fear. He looked down and saw a few zombies responding to her noises. Also, Matt noticed the shower rod had fallen down in the bathroom.

  Matt looked at her and tried to open the window, but nothing.

  “I know I’m not this weak. Come on, Matty…”, he said to himself as he used every ounce of strength to open the window, but nothing.

  Looking at the window again, he realized that it had been nailed shut. A hammer lay near the hysterical woman.

  “THE HAMMER! USE THE HAMMER!”, Matt yelled. The noise hurt his vocal cords.

  She was too hysterical to even consider using the tool.

  The door behind her burst open and in came an older couple with pale skin and terrible open and festering wounds on their arms and face. They dragged themselves over to the woman.

  “NO!! NO!!”, Matt yelled.

  He began to punch at the glass. Feeling it crack gave him hope that he could save her.

  It gave him the hope that he would no longer be alone.

  The monsters descended on her as Matt was about to break the glass.

  He watched them sink their teeth into her neck, blood pouring down her body, then out of her mouth. She began to choke on it and with her weak frame, unable to fight, she let herself fall to the ground.

  Her hand stood at the glass briefly, Matt pressed his hand over the cracked glass where her hand was, until it dragged down to the floor.

  “No…”, Matt said to himself. He began to weep quietly.

  The window shattered, spraying glass everywhere, cutting Matt’s face and his hands and arms.

  The second ghoul, not content with the skinny girl, shoved it’s arms through the weakened glass, tried to pull Matt inside.

  Matt shut his eyes as hard as he can.

  “NO! NO! NO!”, he yelled at it. He opened his mouth in pain as he felt his arm open and drip with blood.

  He felt the slicing sensation burn into his mind and then into his arm. Blood poured all over the ghoul’s mouth as she tried to get his fingers into her hungry and barely toothed mouth.

  Matt grew pale at the sight of all of his blood. His arm inside of the room, it was dripping all over the dead girl’s face, into her eyes and mouth. He pulled as hard as he could, but the pain was too much.

  “Oh God, Oh God”, he said.

  With his other arm, he grabbed his weapon and shoved it into the ghoul’s face. She released his arm as she fell backwards.

  Claiming his arm back, he held it close and felt the blood drip all over him. He grew dizzy and pale with the loss of blood.

  “Fuck, am I going to be one of them now? Did I…lose?”

  All of the gruesome sights since the infection broke out came rushing into his mind all at once. Time stood still. He felt something crack.

  He began to laugh loudly while looking at the hungry zombies trying to make their way onto the fire escape.

  “FUCK YOU!”, He yelled as he slammed the head of the female zombie with his hockey stick. The force was enough to split her decayed head apart, her face peeled open like a split fruit. He saw her brain.

  “DESTROY THE BRAIN, DESTROY THE HEAD, DESTROY THE BRAIN, DESTROY THE HEAD!”, Matt yelled, as he swung the stick again into her, finishing her off.

  “FUCKING BITCH!”, He yelled at her. He stepped inside, smiling at the sight of the male zombie eating the girl he had just tried to save.

  Matt mumbled something under his breath that even he could no comprehend. He raised the stick, and paused so that the zombie looked up at him.

  He wanted to look into it’s dead eyes when he destroyed it.

  He swung the stick down with enough force to break the front of it off, it was now a pointed wooden rod. The front was embedded in the zombie’s head. He slumped over, dead again.

  “HAHA!” Matt was lost in himself. The thought of becoming one of them was enough to push him over the edge.

  He looked at the corpse of the girl, she had not yet turned.

  “It’s all your fault. I was just fine before…” He had stopped to jam the pointed end of the stick into her head. “Your stupid ass made that noise and then I had to come and be the white knight.”

  He tried to remove the stick, but it was stuck in her head. Placing a foot on her head, he pulled the stick out and smiled at the sickening sucking noise that followed.

  “You deserve this, NOT ME!”, he yelled at her corpse.

  He made his way into the house, through the open door, dragging along his broken weapon. He passed by two more zombies in the kitchen, but they didn’t matter. They gave their shambling chase.

  “FUCK YOU!”, he yelled at them. He continued walking, a trail of blood making the zombies’ chase all the easier.

  He walked through the hallway banging on every door and making as much noise as he could.

  “COME ON! I’M HERE!”, he yelled to his invisible audience.

  “I’m not gonna be one of them. I’m not gonna be one of them…”, he muttered in between his shouts. He went down the stairs of the building, pushing the monsters away with his bare hands. Shoving them down the stairs and watching them fall alongside him as he fearlessly walked down.

  Walking down the stairs, he would peer into the hallways, seeing the zombies milling around.

  He banged the stick into the wall.

  “COME HERE, YOU…FUCK!”, he would yell at them.

  The noise assured that they followed him down. At last, he was in the main lobby; he could hear the zombies he had pulled from various parts of the building slowly making their way down the stairs.

  The sick grin he wore across his face never left him as he looked on the hastily barricaded door in the front of the lobby.

  “COME IN! COME IN, ALL OF YOU!”, he yelled as he pulled the various objects blocking off the door. Matt smashed the glass panes before he pulled the doors open, throwing the objects t
hat were barricading the door a second ago into the street to make some noise. He called out to the walking dead.

  Undead from several blocks away heard his noises and began to make way to the building.

  Matt never stopped once to think if there were any survivors barricading themselves in their apartments, but he didn’t care anymore. He was infected as far as he knew and he wasn’t going to become one of them.

  He looked at the stairs, the sick grin still on his face. He began to see the first of the dead making their way into the lobby.

  He ran over to the shambling monster and shoved the pointed end of his broken weapon into it’s head.

  He laughed hard and loud at the slaughter.

  “I AM NOT YOU!”, he yelled at it. He watched it go down and he stamped his foot on it’s head, feeling it’s decayed and soft skull give way under his foot. He took a sick pleasure from it.

  He saw a door that read, “staff only” on it. He ran to it and turned around for a quick second. The open door was allowing dozens of zombies into the lobby; he didn’t have much time now.

  He ran through the door, stabbing a zombie waiting inside quickly with the weapon.

  He saw a hot water tank, with the pilot flame still lit. Near it were several natural gas pipes and a large propane tank.

  “COME ON!”, he yelled with a great urgency at the monsters.

  Looking at the dated water heater, he pulled a large metal lever all the way into one direction. The flame grew huge and the lever snapped off.

  A few of the undead made their way into the room.

  “You’re all going to love this”, he said to them.

  The big flame in the corner of the room lit things up nicely, he was able to see each and every decayed feature on each undead ghoul. Missing teeth, pieces of bone sticking out, blood trails all over the floor. He was clearly not the first in here.

  “This is it, the end of all things”, Matt thought to himself as he smiled at the undead walking towards him.

  He counted at least forty of them walking in and in the lobby from what he could see.

  Matt didn’t say a word. He just smiled his sick, little grin and began smashing the natural gas pipes that were along the walls of the room, he heard the telltale hiss that showed his plan was working.

  The huge fire began to flicker and the air began to stink.

  He lifted the propane tank and turned the knob, a loud hiss sounded from the tank. Matt held it high over his head. All the sound left the room. All he heard was pure silence.

  It was the most blissful and calm moment that Matt had experience since it all began. He breathed in deep and smiled.

  He took a second to look at his injury.

  It was then he noticed the single slit going down his arm. He wasn’t bitten, but scratched from the window.

  “Well, fuck me”, Matt said. Looking at the horde approaching him, they closed in on him and grabbed at his arms and clothes.

  “The end of all things…”, he said quietly as he felt teeth sink into him. He threw the propane tank into the flame.

  He heard nothing at all, but saw only the white flash.

  “The end of all things…”

  Karma

  Kara squeezed Margie’s hand hard and ran with her.

  “We need to leave this place, and NOW!”, Kara yelled.

  “Wait, Kara, we need to go back for them. They weren’t infected. They can help us!”, Margie said as she tried to pull her hand back.

  Kara threw her hand down.

  “Listen! The exit is right there. We need to get out while we still can! Who knows how many of those things are out there right now!”, Kara exclaimed.

  “Look, they are attracted to noises above all else, Kara. I’m sure we can all find a way to distract them and come out with people that can help us!”, Margie said with hushed urgency.

  “Margie, I’m done with you, and I’m done with this. If you’re going to stay in this…this death trap, I won’t holding your hand when you end up like…”

  “Don’t you say it!”

  “Like, Tommy. He didn’t need to die, but he was stupid, and he got himself killed, and I. Will. Not. End up like that! Do you hear me!”, Kara stormed off onto the exit. A loud crunch filled the air, and Kara looked back with a pale and scared look on her face.

  Margie covered her mouth.

  Kara screamed.

  On the floor was a half of a ghoul greedily holding onto Kara’s leg, chewing a chunk of her calf, missing her muscle and weakened by the blood loss, Kara fell to the ground. The ghoul crawled its way up her body and bit a chunk of her side off and began to chew as it crawled up her torso and clawed her face before it took a bite of her cheek.

  Kara screamed in agony as her blood poured out of her. The creature all but ignored Margie as it was focused on Kara’s screaming.

  Margie was stunned in terror. The monster bit into Kara’s face again, ripping out one of her eyes, chewing it. A pop filled the air.

  “H-h-h-help. M-Margie. I-I can’t see”, Kara made out.

  Margie walked over to Kara with her gun in hand. She felt the cold metal in her hand. Kara’s screams were slowly fading away from her mind. She looked at her last companion’s face, rather, what was left of it. Blood, veins, facial muscles were all becoming a blur to her.

  Kara reached her arm up and touched Margie’s thigh.

  Her words were just a garbled mess at this point.

  Margie pointed her gun at Kara’s head. Kara let go.

  Bang

  Bang

  One for Kara and one for the monster that took her away.

  Margie put the gun back into her pocket, she made the sign of the cross, and then she briskly walked back up to where the two men were.

  She arrived, seeing the one with the shotgun sitting next to his semi-conscious friend.

  “Excuse me”, she quietly said.

  He aimed the gun at her. “Come to finish with what you’ve started?”, he said. “No.” He lowered the gun. “What do you want though?”

  “My name’s Margi…”

  He interrupted, “Where’s your friend?”

  “She’s gone. Didn’t you hear the gunshots?”

  “I was wondering what that was”, he said. “Also, my name is Dave, nice to meet you, Margie. This is Jason. He’s usually more talkative.”

  “Look, Dave, we don’t have much time. The noise attracts them and I don’t think we should be here”, Margie said.

  “Okay, I’ll get him ready to go. Go into the gun shop over there, grab what you can find, and I’ll follow you”, Dave said.

  Margie collected a few loose bullets that seemed to fit her gun and loaded them. She began to shake as she put in the last one. She cried quietly and her mind drifted off. She remembered the faces of those who had been with her before. She remembered Mr. Fontaine, Tommy, Paulie, and now, Kara. They were all gone. Whatever madness swept over the world had swallowed them whole.

  She stopped to remember her father through all of this, how he was one of the first and how he was torn limb from limb right in front of her eyes.

  The tears poured down her cheek.

  “Hey, we’ll get through this”, Dave said to her calmly. He propped Jason against a nearby wall and put his hands on Margie’s shoulders. “We are going to the army base nearby and we are getting out of here. They’ll take us all away and things will be better. Come on, Margie.”

  He carefully dried her face with part of his shirt.

  She giggled through the tears at seeing the #1 grandpa shirt.

  “I knew that shirt would come in handy”, Jason weakly said.

  He smiled a little as he returned to the world.

  “Oh, God!”, Dave yelled as he hugged his friend. “I was scared I lost you!”

  Jason hugged back, “Come on. I needed a little nap. Who’s your friend”, he asked.

  “I’m Margie.” She said.

  “Well, I’m Jason. It’s nice to meet you. You wer
en’t the one that clubbed me, right? No, you were in front of me. So, who hit me?”, Jason asked.

  “That was…Kara. She didn’t make it”, she said sadly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry”, Jason said sadly. “Nice girl, though”, he said, as he rubbed the back of his head. “Good arm, could have used her.”