Refuge: Tales from a Zombie Apocalypse

by Anthea Strezze

Monsters

  Lanie opened her eyes, suddenly awake, but not sure why.

  Keller had bragged about how secure his bunker was, but now she wondered how accurate his claims were. She sat up, looking around and straining her eyes to catch any faint contrast or sense of motion in the dark.

  Nothing.

  She had never experienced true darkness before the disaster. A city girl, she was used to having enough light seeping through the blinds at night that she could easily navigate her apartment in the "dark." Now, though…

  She held her breath, trying to hear any faint scuffs or creaks, but Keller's gentle snore seemed like an airplane engine in comparison to the quiet night. She jabbed him viciously in the ribs.

  He snorted a little, groaned, and sat up, holding his own breath for a moment. "What is it?" he asked, while she was still straining to hear.

  "I don't know," she whispered.

  She heard him get up, and waited.

  "I can't see anything on the scope," he said, returning to the pallet and fumbling around. "I'll take a flashlight and a crowbar, and check outside."

  Lanie grabbed his arm, holding him down with all her body weight. "No! Every horror movie I've ever seen tells me that's a bad idea."

  He let out a long sigh, putting the flashlight aside and lying down next to her. "Fine, then I'm going back to sleep. Wake me if the door caves in." A moment later, he was snoring again.

  Lanie hugged her knees and stared into the darkness, hoping that whatever had woken her up couldn't break in.

  She dozed. She couldn't help but doze after the long day they had spend getting there, and the long night since.

  The dream started innocently enough. An idyllic market scene, her mood peaceful, even serene. The people around her were speaking Chinese, but somehow she knew their meaning. "Good morning!" "How much is this fish?" "How is your mother?" "I'll take two." The sort of thing she might have heard at the farmer's market in town, before.

  Then in a flash of light, everyone fell down dead. Everyone! Bending down to examine one of the bodies, she even saw a bee lying dead on his shirt. Not just everyone, but everything was dead, and silence reigned. She leaned closer, looking into the stranger's face, feeling a sort of distant sorrow. What had happened? Why was she still alive?

  The man's eyes snapped open, and his face twisted into a mask of fury. "How dare you?" he shouted. "Why do you get to live?"

  Lanie startled awake, gasping for air and staring around in the darkness. She couldn't turn on the lantern, she couldn't! They would see the light, and know she was there.

  Fear jittered along her nerves, followed by a shudder and a horrible conviction. They already knew she was there, just as she knew they were there. And they were angry. She could practically feel their anger beating against her skin.

  She sat up and set her back against the wall, facing the deadlocked and barred door. She couldn't face the deeper sleep that might come with lying down again. Just a nightmare, she told herself. Treat it like a normal nightmare. Why China? She had been self-analyzing her nightmares for a long time before the disaster, and it was second nature to start asking the questions, and using them to dull her emotional response.

  In her mind, she saw the man's face again, and shuddered at the fury in his voice. Let's see. China is foreign, China is a rival, if not an enemy. And there had been rumors that China was preparing for an attack, before the disaster. The Chinese government had blamed the US for the virulent bird flu that was sweeping the globe, even though the initial outbursts in three major US cities had clearly been a terrorist attack.

  I feel like the zombies are foreign. That the undead are foreign to the living. And they're definitely enemies.

  The thought triggered the memory of that morning, and she shivered.

  Had it really been less than a day?

  Over the past few weeks, she had already nursed both parents and a cousin to their final rests, so when her uncle died in the night, it was neither a surprise nor a novelty. She called the hotline, and in the morning a doctor and three volunteers showed up to take care of the body. But then while the doctor was doing the obligatory check for vital signs, her uncle sat up, grabbed the doctor by the throat, and squeezed until her body went limp.

  Two of the volunteers rushed to restrain him, while the third dropped to his knees by the doctor to start CPR. Lanie ran for her gun.

  A perfect head shot had only slowed her uncle's body down, and by then the doctor was attacking too, and one of the volunteers was dead. While she wavered, unsure of where to aim next, the dead volunteer rose and lurched into the man who the doctor and her uncle were already attacking. The third volunteer grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room, out of the house.

  Sitting in his truck with the doors locked, watching the dead come shambling out into the street, he told her about his bunker, and she told him to drive...

  She stared in the general direction of his snore now, and wondered what she had been thinking, coming out to the middle of nowhere with a complete stranger. I should have just gone to the public shelter, she thought. Instead, she ran off with a stranger and practically tore his clothes off as soon as they were safe. What her mother would say... was her mother a zombie now too?

  She shivered, and tried to redirect her thoughts. What I need right now is a movie. A funny, happy movie. She closed her eyes tight, envisioning cartoon balloons, and relaxed into a happier memory.

  Memory turned into dream, but she didn't realize she was sleeping. She was floating, flying over a city, and then she was down in the street, watching people rushing about their business. A woman in a crisp suit caught her eye, and she followed her. Lanie knew, in the way of dreams, that the young woman was on her way to a very important meeting, and that if things went well she would be getting a promotion and a raise, and her parents would be able to keep their farm a little longer.

  There was a flash of light, and the woman fell, her body deforming with a wet squelch as it hit the ground. Lanie looked around for help, but everyone else had fallen in the same instant. No one was moving in the street except for her. She wanted to help, but all she could do was stand there, surrounded by death.

  Suddenly, they were face to face, the woman's eyes open and accusing. "You killed us!" she shouted. "Now you'll die too!"

  Lanie jerked awake, her head hitting the wall as the words echoed in her mind. A dream, she told herself, her eyes open so wide they were starting to hurt. Another nightmare.

  Trying not to pant, she felt her way over to the scope and peered out, but all she could see was more black night. She would have to wait until morning. In the meantime, some part of her mind was utterly convinced that they were surrounded, that the woods around the bunker were filled with the angry dead. The angry Chinese dead, she thought, mocking herself. I guess I should be glad I'm not dreaming about my family.

  She shuddered, sure that now her next nightmare would be just that. She blinked, hard, and shifted her weight, debating the best way to stay awake. The bunker was built of cinderblocks and rebar, though the inside was nicely finished. The ceiling was more of the same, but also had thick glass blocks that would let in daylight once the sun rose. She could wait until then to sleep.

  For the rest of the night she stood, sometimes leaning against the wall, sometimes pacing in the dark, trying to shake the conviction that she could feel zombies gathering outside. When light first started to seep through the skylight, she thought it was her imagination, but then she realized that - finally! - it was dawn.

  She went eagerly to the scope, but instead of trees and brush saw nothing. It was blocked.

  Her stomach sank, and she tried hard not to panic as she backed away and returned to her spot against the wall. It doesn't have to be a zombie blocking the scope, she tried to tell herself, but her mind's eye supplied a vision of dozens of zombies, standing quietly outside the bunker, waiting for the door to open.

  She sat down, trying to take comfort in the fain
t sunlight while Keller snored and the zombies waited.

  She was still sitting, holding her knees and staring into space, when Keller finally woke up.

  He stretched, and smiled at her. "So, any zombies out there, now that it's light out?"

  "Yes. At least a dozen." Even as she said it, she felt guilty for sounding so certain. After all, she hadn't actually seen anything.

  Keller went over to the scope and swore. "I can't see anything - something's blocking the scope."

  "One of them."

  He peered out again, then gave her a suspicious look. "You know that, or you think it?"

  She hesitated just a moment too long, and he shook his head. "Look, I know you're scared. So am I, after what we went through yesterday! But you can't just assume that because the scope's blocked there are zombies. We're in the middle of nowhere, probably miles from the nearest town, so where would they even come from?"

  Lanie grimaced. He had a point, but still... "Maybe they followed us."

  "Look," Keller said after a moment. "I'll go outside and check. If it's a zombie covering the scope, I'll kill it, and if it's not, I'll clear whatever it is off."

  He grabbed a crowbar and reached for the deadbolt.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Lanie said, her skin crawling.

  "Relax." He turned the lock.

  The sound of the deadbolt unlocking triggered a surge of nervous sensation that sent Lanie scrambling, all thought of proof and rationality gone. She grabbed her gun, disengaged the safety, and pointed it at Keller.

  "Lock. That. Door," she said, her voice shaking. Her hands were steady, though.

  Keller turned the lock again, re-engaging the deadbolt. "You need to calm down," he said, leaving his hand on the lock.

  "You need to keep that door closed," she said. "It's not just one zombie, and if you open that door, you'll let them in. They're waiting, right outside." Suddenly, it didn't matter if it was possible or not. She could feel their anger, throbbing on the edge of her awareness and fraying her own temper bare.