by Frank Tayell
“Light! I need light!”
There was no reply. He raised the gun, pivoting left and right, trying to peer into the darkness.
They’d turned the lights on in the motel, and in two of the cars they’d parked outside. They could see for twenty yards around the building, but had blinded themselves to anything beyond. Monique was meant to be bringing out lamps from the rooms in the hope they could push the shadows further down the road, but there was no sign of her.
A shape staggered out of the darkness. He raised the revolver. Bracing his hand on his wrist, he waited. Waited. He fired. The zombie fell. Was that the tenth? The twentieth? He’d lost count.
When thirty seconds passed without any more hideous faces appearing out of the darkness, he backed away until he reached the wood and vehicle barricade. It had seemed so sturdy at sunset. Now, it seemed little more than a taunt, a signpost to these creatures as to where they were.
“We should have left,” Helena said. “Right after we killed those two murderers.” She dropped the metal bar from her hand. Her arms were covered in gore.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Tom said. “But where do we run? It’s clear those roads were blocked by something.” Vehicles filled with the undead was his first thought, and he tried not to let it become the one that dominated his mind. It was bad enough not being able to see what lay outside the meager pool of light without imagining it filled with hundreds of snapping, gaping mouths.
“We can’t leave now,” he said. “Not in the dark when we can barely see a few feet ahead of us.”
“Amy! Weapons! Hurry!” Helena snapped. Amy had been left in charge of weapons and Noah. Her hands shook too much to be trusted with anything else. “That wasn’t what I meant,” Helena added as the young woman passed through another iron bar, one end wrapped in a torn sheet. Tom grabbed a bottle and splashed water on his hands before wiping them dry on his jacket. He could feel the skin tightening as cold bit into his damp flesh.
“What did you mean?” Tom asked.
“That we shouldn’t have stopped. We should have kept on, but we didn’t. When that helicopter comes—”
“If it comes,” Lawrence said coming up to join them. He dropped the broken handle of the shovel.
“If,” Helena agreed. “There’s not going to be room for all of us. We can ask a soldier to give up their seat for Noah, and perhaps for Lawrence, but not for all of us. Sooner or later, we have to make a stand, right?”
Lawrence laughed. “You’re not saying you believed Maxwell when he gave that speech?”
“I dunno,” Helena said. “But here and now, it’s true. Some of us will be left behind. We should have left, but we didn’t. We’re here, and we have to make this place a refuge.”
“How?” Lawrence asked. “There’re no weapons. Barely enough food to get us through the week. There’s water, but no well, and we’re on a hill. When the power’s cut, the pumps won’t work, the water will stop. This isn’t a refuge. It’s not even a fort.”
“Tom can get them to send supplies. And troops, right?”
“Maybe. I can try.”
“He can ask,” Lawrence said. “He can’t even guarantee they’ll listen, let alone do anything about it.”
“But they might,” Helena said. “If we drive off into the unknown, they won’t know where to send them. But if we stay here, they can. There needs to be refuges, places people can come, places they can be safe. The alternative is that we all wander the countryside until we’re each attacked, infected, and we turn. We’ll all die.”
“Maybe,” Lawrence said. “If we survive tonight.”
“North!” Monique called. “North!”
Tom dropped the water bottle and grabbed a metal bar. They walked wearily out into the road to meet them. One, then two, then four lurched into the beams of light from the car. He shifted the metal bar to his left hand and drew the revolver. He fired. He was tired. His aim was off. The bullet slammed into the zombie’s shoulder. He fired again. The bullet hit its forehead. It collapsed. He tracked the barrel to the next creature, pulled the trigger, and the hammer hit a spent round. He was very tired. He’d forgotten to reload and now there wasn’t time. He stuffed the revolver back into his pocket.
“The shotgun!” he barked and realized Helena hadn’t been carrying it. He swore and stepped forward, swinging the metal bar low. It crunched into a leg. The zombie went down. He stepped back, but there wasn’t time to swing at its head. Another zombie lurched into the gap. He swung, aiming at the skull, but the zombie’s flailing arms were in the way. Bone broke, but the zombie kept on. He punched the bar forward into its face. The metal bit into skin, tearing away skin. The zombie kept moving. It was too much. Something in him snapped.
He screamed. Swinging the bar up and down, no longer aiming, just beating at the creature until it stopped moving, then on to the next. He no longer saw the faces of the zombies in front of him, only Farley and the other conspirators who’d betrayed the people they’d sworn to protect.
Something tugged at his leg. Reflexively, he tried to jump back, but a great weight prevented him. It was the zombie he’d knocked down, and its hands were curled around his leg. He stamped his heel down on its skull. It cracked open, oozing brain onto the road. A wave of dark satisfaction washed through him. He screamed again, turning it into a yell, knowing that this here was death and that he would meet it head on.
Something glowing tumbled through the air. There was a whoosh, and the ground in front of him lit up. Another flaming light, and this time he heard the breaking of glass before the eruption of flames. Someone was throwing the glass bottles that they’d filled with gasoline.
Hope blossomed with the flames, and the momentary wave of relief cleared the berserk rage from his mind. The flash of triumph was extinguished when a third bottle smashed into a zombie’s chest. Flames engulfed the creature, but it didn’t stop. It didn’t scream. It staggered on, arms flailing, a living torch, getting nearer, nearer, not just to him, but to their barricade which was as much wood as it was metal.
The rage was gone now, replaced with exhausted fear. He raised the metal bar, dreading what would come next. The shotgun roared. The zombie fell. Arm still raised, Tom looked around, but there were no more zombies. The world had gone suddenly silent, except for the bubbling of twice-dead flesh. And there was something else. Someone was sobbing. He turned around. It was Amy. She was cradling Monique’s head.
“What happened?”
“She came to help,” Amy said.
“Let me see.” A chunk of flesh had been ripped from her arm. Blood poured from the wound. “We need a bandage, quick!”
“Why? She’s dead already,” Amy howled.
Tom picked up the wounded woman. “Keep watch,” he yelled at Helena and Lawrence, and carried the girl over the barricade.
A few of the vehicles had had first-aid kits. They’d left them with the meager store of food. Tom grabbed a bandage, ripped it open, and slapped it on Monique’s arm. What else was he meant to do? Should he elevate the wound above the heart? He had no idea. He felt Monique’s neck. There was a pulse, but it was weak.
“She wanted to help,” Amy said.
“Sure. Of course,” Tom murmured, unable to think of anything more comforting to say. He looked around. “Where’s Noah?”
“Here,” the boy said.
“Take Noah, and some food and water, go up to the roof of the filing station,” Tom said. “Wait there. Both of you. Keep watch, understand? You keep watch and you shout out if you see anything. Go. Now.”
The only safety that roof offered was as a refuge until the helicopter arrived. If it arrived. Dawn was a long way off, and noon an eon after that, but there was nothing else he could do, nowhere else they could go. Amy grabbed Noah and backed away. Tom looked down at Monique. Her pulse was weakening. He took out the revolver. The spent rounds tinkled to the floor. He’d tried to save the world, and he’d failed. There was no way of knowing what would ha
ve happened if he’d not discovered the cabal’s plans. He couldn’t imagine that it could have turned out worse. For the first time in thirty years, he wished he’d never come to America.
Slowly, methodically, he reloaded. He reached for Monique’s throat. The pulse flickered. It was gone. He aimed at the woman’s forehead, but he waited. He had to be sure. Monique’s eyes flicked open, absent of all life. He fired.
He stood. He wished that there was something more, some ceremony he could perform that would give meaning to this senseless death.
“Tom! They’re coming!” Helena called. Tom took one last look at the dead girl, opened the revolver, replaced the spent round, and then headed back to the road.
Chapter 27 - The Final Address
February 27th, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania
They’d killed their last zombie at three a.m., but spent the rest of the night waiting for more. When dawn came, he saw the carnage they’d wrought. For many reasons, he couldn’t believe it. Bodies lay twisted, burned, and broken. Limbs had been smashed, skulls split, and the roadway was coated in the dark slime of necrotic fluids. Yet it was the number that was most surprising.
“I was sure there were more,” he said.
“Forty. Forty-five,” Lawrence said with a shake of his head. “Yeah, it felt like more.”
Tom’s eyes fell on Monique’s body. He went into the nearest room, and found a sheet with which to cover her.
“Now we wait for noon?” Helena asked.
“I guess,” Tom said, peering into the distance. “It’s not like they’re going to stop because it’s daylight. I suppose we could drive down the road and find out whether it’s blocked or not.”
“If I start driving,” Lawrence said, “I won’t be coming back. Go and wash. I’ll keep watch.”
A tepid shower didn’t help, and he felt guilty standing under the running water for so long. The borrowed, mildewed clothes only heightened how detached from reality he felt. He went back to the barricade. Lawrence went to be with Noah. Helena went to shower.
It all felt wrong. This was America. A week ago everything was normal. Now he stood in a motel that had become a battleground, and one that would never be remembered. Certainly, he had no intention of bringing the place to mind. He turned his eyes to the rising sun, breathed in deep, and then wished he hadn’t. The smell of singed flesh made him gag.
“Tom!” Lawrence called. He was pointing to the south. Tom clambered onto the roof of the nearest car so he could get a better view though he knew what he’d see. A soldier lurched toward them. Not a soldier, not anymore. He jumped down, picked up a metal bar, and went to wait in the road.
“Nate?”
“I can’t talk. Not now. The president’s about to address the nation.”
“We’ve been fighting zombies since last night. There are five of us here. We’ll all need to be evacuated.”
“Right. Fine,” Nate said impatiently. “I’ll pass it along, but I have to go.”
“You heard that?” Tom said to Lawrence.
The undead had continued drifting in during the morning, never more than one at a time, but always in a slow, constant trickle.
“If any more come…” Lawrence said. He didn’t finish. He’d made the threat to leave a dozen times since sunrise, even going so far as to put food into one of the cars. He hadn’t left yet.
“We should watch the president’s address,” Helena said. “I mean, we might as well, right?”
They dragged a television as far out of the room as the power cord would allow, and turned the set on. To the background of an orchestral piece that Tom vaguely recognized but couldn’t name, a flag fluttered in an unseen breeze, overlaid with the text: Stand by for the President of the United States.
They waited. Tom paced away, looked down the road. It was clear. He turned back to the television, and then back to the road. The TV. The road. The music abruptly stopped. He turned around.
It wasn’t the Oval Office, but the lawn in front of the White House. A podium stood there, empty. Behind it were arrayed dozens of people. To either side, watching them, almost as if they were guarding them, were Marines in uniforms that looked like they’d seen recent use.
“That’s not right,” Tom said. “It makes them look like they’re prisoners of war.”
“Shh.”
The president walked to the podium. “My fellow Americans,” he began.
“He looks sick,” Tom said.
“Shh!” Helena shushed him again. Max did look sick, pale, drawn, tired, and as if he’d lost a few pounds in the previous week. That was to be expected, wasn’t it?
“We are not at a crossroads,” Max said. “There are no choices, no alternative paths. We have each come to face a terrible horror in this past week. It may seem unimaginable, yet it is terrifyingly real…”
“Who told him to say that,” Tom muttered. It was the wrong thing to say. As the speech went on, Tom’s brow furrowed further. Max wasn’t a great speechwriter. He’d excelled at town halls and debates, and had a way of coming up with instantly quotable, off-the-cuff remarks. However, when he consciously tried to write a speech it always turned out wrong, like it was now. He peered at the faces behind the president. Nate had been right; all the familiar ones were gone. Who were these people?
“More instructions will be given to you over the coming days,” Max continued. “You must listen to your local authorities. Together we can defeat this foe. Our nation is not lost, nor will it be as long as we stand together. God bless America, and… God—”
There was a scream. A figure lurched through the crowd toward the podium. There was a fusillade of gunfire. The screen went blank, before being filled again with the image of that fluttering flag.
In the courtyard of the motel, there was absolute silence.
“That was Washington,” Amy said quietly. “The White House.”
“Tom?” Helena asked.
He shook his head, not sure what to say.
“Noah, come on. We’re leaving,” Lawrence said.
“No,” Helena said. “You can’t.”
“Amy’s right,” Lawrence said. “That’s the White House. Do you know what that means? It means that all the military in the world can’t stop these things. Washington’s gone. Any chance of stopping them is gone. Any helicopters, any soldiers, they’ll be deployed to save the capital, and it will be too late. It can’t be done. It’s over.”
“You don’t know that,” Helena said.
“What do you think’s going to happen next?” Lawrence asked. “You think people are going to stay in their homes? Whatever we’ve seen so far, it’s going to get worse. We can’t stay here, and we can’t wait on the chance this helicopter will arrive.”
“But… Tom?” she turned toward him.
“He’s right,” Tom said. “Despite how many people we saw on the roads this last week, most were staying in their homes. How many of them will be hungry, desperate? They’ll see this as a sign it’s all over. They’ll take to the roads. There’ll be too many for the military to stop, and far too many for them to protect. You saw what happened here yesterday? Thousands more people will be infected by nightfall. Tens of thousands by tomorrow. The whole nation will be in ruins by the end of the week. It’s why you have to wait, Lawrence. There’s no safety out there. Wait. The helicopter will come.”
“Call your man and see,” Lawrence said.
Tom dialed the number. Nate didn’t answer.
“We’re going,” Lawrence said.
Tom tried to think of something he could say that would stop him. He couldn’t, and he wasn’t sure that Lawrence was wrong. He picked up the shotgun and handed it to the man. “Good luck.”
Lawrence nodded. One hand on Noah’s shoulder, he led the boy to the car. After the briefest hesitation, in which she glanced at Monique’s shrouded corpse, Amy followed.
Tom and Helena watched the car drive away. Tom headed to the filling station.
“Want
to see if they make it,” he said. But by the time they got to the roof, the car was gone. He sat down.
“What does it mean?” Helena asked.
“Farley. This must have been his plan all along.”
“What?”
“Or his plan for the last week. The White House was guarded by an army, and a phalanx of the best-trained bodyguards in the world. A zombie didn’t manage to get through that cordon.”
“You mean it was brought in?”
He took out the tablet. “I mean that someone inside was deliberately infected.”
“But… why?”
“So that when the president addressed the nation, a whole week after the crisis began, people would see that attack. It doesn’t matter how it happened, or what happens in Washington now. Chaos will take hold. Everyone who saw it will take it as a sign the government is gone, and no help will come. They can broadcast whatever they like on the television and the radio, and it won’t matter. No one will believe it. Here, look. Nate said he was uploading footage. He must have been recording the speech.”
“He uploaded a video?”
It took an age to load, and wasn’t worth the wait. It showed exactly what they’d just watched, except that it continued for another few seconds, long enough for them to see the president bundled off the stage by secret service agents.
“Why? Why would Farley do that?” Helena asked, as Tom put the tablet away. “How does it help him?”
“It makes it easier to seize power. Maybe he plans to hide in a bunker until this is all over. It will be over, some day, and when it is, he wants to emerge from his nest at the front of an army of thousands. He won’t need more than that to take over what’s left of the world.”
“But… why?”
“Because the cabal wants power. Nothing more. They want to rule, and to them it doesn’t matter how many subjects they have.”
“We have to stop him.”
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean we really have to stop him,” she said. “I mean, if I survive all of this, I don’t want to end up as some kind of feudal serf living in his twisted dystopia.”