The Z Strain

by Matthew Isaiah Crawford

  “Come on boys, 30 rooms to go then we’re done for the day.” John says trying to sound motivated.

  “Not exactly, the way I figure it.” Mark said with a sigh. “Our day is only half over at best.”

  “How you figure that?” Asked John.

  “Well, we need to gather supplies, fill up every tub and sink with water, um.”

  “Water, what are you talking about?” Steve chimed in. Mark paused, he was trying not to get frustrated with Steve’s attitude, but it was wearing on him.

  “Well how long you think the power is going to stay on, a day, maybe two?” What are we going to do for water when the pumps stop running? We’d be in big trouble if we ran out. I think we also need to get down onto the third floor. We can probably wait for tomorrow for that, but we need to get to the kitchen pantry if we want to survive.”

  “Jesus, I hadn’t thought of any of that.” Margaret said rubbing her forehead.

  “Well, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.” Mark said with a smile and a wink. John held the axe out to Steve.

  “You ready for a shift Steve-o, or are you going to let me do all the work?” John asked.

  “Don’t call me that.” Steve said yanking the axe out of John’s hand.

  Steve pushed his key card into the lock and pulled it back out. A small light on the door turned green and the lock can be heard disengaging. A rustling could be heard briefly from the other side of the door. Steve hesitated for a moment and then pushed his way through the door. There was a man and a woman who had been previously standing near the window. Had turned towards the door and had begun walking towards it when Steve pushed his head through the door. As soon as they saw him, they made for the door quickly. He backed out quickly slamming the door. He fell backwards slamming against the wall. His head shot directly towards John who was standing with the bloody pipe wrench in his hand, raised eyebrows, and huge grin streaming across his face.

  “Someone in there I take it?” He asked nodding.

  “Two” Steve nodded in agreement. John walked past him and pushed his hand down on the door handle. Lifting the wrench above his head he threw his shoulder into the door. It barely budged. He stopped momentarily and then looked back at Steve, who was still sitting on the floor.

  “I’m going to need a little help on this one. They’re both pushing against the door.”

  “Okay.” Steve said taking a deep breath. He pushed himself up from the floor and steeled himself for what was to come next. The next few seconds passed like a slow-motion nightmare for Steve. They both threw their shoulders into the door. Pushing violently through the doorway John’s pipe wrench came down squarely on the center of the man’s head. Their momentum carrying them forward, Steve brought the axe down as he was falling, the blade of the axe missing her skull and coming down into the soft tissue of her shoulder, hitting the shoulder blade with a ‘thud’.

  Steve fell forward down on top of her. Her mouth snapping violently less than an inch away from his face. He screamed and tried to roll off of her, but his axe was stuck. When he tried to pull away, she came with him. Her left arm, nearly severed, came alive and reached up grabbing Steve on the back of his left arm. He yelped both in pain and surprise. John got to his feet and hit her on the side of the temple with a golf swing with the wrench knocking her backwards and freeing the blade of the axe. She came right back for them and her mouth was almost on Steve’s leg when the wrench fell again, this time stopping the creature permanently.

  They looked at each other for a moment and John turned to walk away. He got to the archway of the door when he realized that Steve wasn’t following him.

  “You all right?” John asked looking over his shoulder. Steve was still looking at the woman, his whole body was shaking. “Steve! Are you okay!?” Steve came to, finally looking up at John.

  “No. I’m not okay. This is all just so fucked up.”

  “It sure is, and hey, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before, that’s awesome.” A thin smile broke out on Steve’s face as John disappeared from the doorway.

  Residence of Marcus Leavy - Boulder Canyon Rd. Boulder Colorado

  Friday August 16th 9:15 AM MST

  Andrea’s trip to Marcus’ house was not an uneventful one. Twice she had to double back and take a different route. The first appeared to be a gas explosion, there were several houses, several cars and numerous undead were engulfed in flames. She had gone west several blocks before attempting to proceed. Had made some progress before driving into what could only be described as a heard of zombies. She had considered trying to plow through them but thought better of it and doubled back again. She had made the remaining distance with relative ease.

  Now she sits in her blue sedan, debating on if it would be preferable to face a world full of undead monsters unarmed, or enter her ex-boyfriend’s house. She begrudgingly made her way to the door and raised her hand to knock on the door. The door opened before her hand could make contact.

  “You are about the second to last person I ever expected to show up on my doorstep.” Marcus said with a snide smile on his face. Marcus stands just over six-feet tall and has curly hair that bobs around his ears. He has olive skin that darkens in the Colorado mountain summers. He carries himself with a cocky arrogance that Andrea at one time found irresistible, now finds absolutely repulsive.

  “Marcus, do you have any idea what’s going on out there?” Andrea asked, already annoyed by his presence.

  “Yea, sounds pretty much like hell on earth.” He leans his elbow against the doorframe.

  “That sums it up pretty close. I need your help, your weapons, and we need to get out of the city.”

  “Why would we leave, this place is totally zombie proof.”

  “Seriously Marcus?”

  “Hell yeah, the basement is steel and concrete babe. This door is solid oak, there are bars on the windows, and I have an emergency kit that would last me close to a month. Or last the two of us two weeks.” He winked.

  “First, don’t call be babe, ever.” She said pushing past him into the house. “Second, you’d better be damn sure this place is going to hold up.” Andrea pushed passed him with her hands in the air as if to ward off her disgust from touching him.

  “I’m sure.” He said closing the door behind her and locking the deadbolt on the door.

  Half an hour later Andrea finds herself bored to tears sitting in a chair listening to her ex-boyfriend drabble on about how badly he fucked up losing her in his poorly furnished basement. Then he continued on to how nice his new Camaro was, and various other insignificant topics before he started hitting on her again. Andrea was almost ready to go back outside with the undead. The droning voice in her head was almost so loud that she didn’t hear the other noise in the background. At first Andrea just thought that it was mice or something scratching around in the walls.

  “Marcus.” She said, but he kept talking. “Marcus, shut up and listen.” She holds her hand up to emphasize her seriousness. Marcus finally stops looking at her with an annoyed look on his face. In the distance a slow grinding can be heard. And just underneath a moaning, that can just barely be heard behind the scratching.

  “Fuck, they’re out there.” He says. He hops down off the bar stool and walks towards the front of the house. “Hold on, let me take a peek.” He says confidently.

  “Be careful.” She warns. The noise seemed to be getting louder, or maybe it was only because the room was now silent. Marcus pulls the shade back from the small basement window and cranes his neck to the left. At his front doorstep four of them were clawing away at the wood, their fingernails ripped off, some of their fingers showing bone. Marcus turned around to face Andrea, his face ashen.

  “They’rrre Heeeeerrreee.”

  “Funny. Asshole.”

  “Awe come on, it was bound to happen, but like I said, this place is virtually impenetrable. We have nothing to worry about it, I swear.”

  “Marcus, I need to get some
sleep. I’m going on twenty-four hours straight. Will you please keep watch, but wake me and let me know if anything happens? Okay?”

  “You can count on me baby.”

  “That hasn’t been our history. And stop calling me baby.” Andrea curled up in her chair and tucked her head down in the crook of her arm.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  “Okay, thank you Marcus.” Andrea said. It took her a long time to find sleep despite her exhaustion. She couldn’t get her mind away from the scratching and moaning sounds in the distance. Eventually exhaustion overwhelmed her, and sleep finally found her. It pulled her down into a shadowy nightmare landscape where no footing was solid, and no amount of running could escape her from danger that was close behind. The scratching and moaning never stopped.

  Washington DC

  Friday, August 16th, 10:28 AM EST

  Richard Burr would be known as the 46th inaugurated president of The United States of America. He would also be known as the last inaugurated president under the old Constitution. President Burr sat at his desk with his head in his hands. His salt and pepper hair perfectly manicured with the part just off his left temple. It had been a nightmare of a morning. The phone calls started pouring in at about four o’clock in the morning and showed no signs of slowing down. He had received reports varying from a terrorist actions to a viral outbreak of unknown origins. All he knew right now was that people were dying, planes were falling out of the sky, and communications had been lost with most military posts. The world appeared to be descending into anarchy in an awful hurry this morning.

  He had made the call to move all the cabinet members to the secret bunker in Missouri at about five o’clock this morning. The call had just come in that they didn’t make it, apparently someone on the plane had been infected, and the plane had gone down into the Carlyle Reservoir in Southern Illinois. He was beginning to come to the grim realization that the United States Government was in fact going to collapse under his watch.

  A secret service agent barges into the room without knocking.

  “We have to evacuate now sir. The helicopter is ready.”

  “Okay, one-minute Michael.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid we don’t have a minute sir.” The president raises his head now his eyes questioning the previous statement. In the brief moment that passed, six more agents poured into the oval office and began securing the doors. Most of the agents holds a hand to their ear listening intently to what is coming through the line.

  “Multiple breach points, multiple targets, moving the president to the bunker now!” “Copy, Oscar Mike, forty seconds.” The agent moved to grab the president from his desk, “Plan B sir, we’re going to Whiskey Hotel, now, the white house is breached, we’ll never make the chopper.”

  “Oh, my God Mike, we’re all going to die, aren’t we?” President Burr grabbed his glasses from the Resolute desk, fumbling them nervously onto his face.

  “Not on my watch sir. But we have to go right now!” The secret service agent grabs the president by the arm and begins to lead him out of a side door in the Oval Office. They are nearly through the door when the large double doors at the front of the room burst open. Screaming, bloodied men, women and children pour through. The agent shoves the president through the door and turns to fire. Five rounds leave his weapon before he is overwhelmed.

  The president walks alone down a dimly lit hallway, making his way down a narrow flight of stairs. He pauses at the bottom, listening for any movement on the other side. This is supposed to be a secure emergency exit, but sounds can be heard on the other side. He pushes open another door, expecting to find reinforcements, he finds only carnage. Several secret service agents litter the hallway along with some civilians. The smell of gunfire is thick in the air. Down the hallway he can see shadows of movement from around the corner. He bends over, gingerly grabbing a gun from a fallen secret service agent. He holds the gun to his temple and looks to the ceiling. A group of the snarling masses rounds the corner and makes for the president.

  “God, forgive me.” He whispered before putting the gun to his temple.

  Boulder Colorado

  Friday August 16th, 12:02 PM

  Captain Horn opened his eyes. The blinding daylight prevented him from seeing anything but red. He squeezed his eyes closed trying to adjust to the burning light, but all he saw was red there too. The red flowing from the bodies of his fallen men last night. Young men who were in his trust, young men who looked up to him, just boys who died in that parking lot because he ordered them to do so.

  The air is thick with the smell of sweat and blood. A combination of bitter salt and an undertone of metallic copper. When he opened his eyes again there was a droplet of sweat dangling just off of his eyelash catches the suns reflective rays causing a tiny rainbow in his vision. There was a ringing inside his ears that seemed to echo inside his own skull.

  When he tried to move, he found that all of his exposed skin felt burnt and his fatigues were plastered against his skin. Every nerve ending in his body began screaming in agony with every slight motion. He could feel fabric tearing out of wounds, opening them, and causing them to seep. He raises his face from the hot cement and tries to look down at his body. His green fatigues are covered in dark patches of blood. An image flashes through his head of a small child with one eye missing biting a chunk of flesh out of his calf.

  Captain Horn puts his hand down on the pavement to push himself to a sitting position but stops with a hiss as a shockwave of pain floods his body. Pausing, he pulls his left hand from the ground and lifts it in front of his face. He blinks a couple times as if trying to adjust to what he’s seeing. His pinky and ring finger are missing from his left hand. Pushing awkwardly with his left elbow and right hand he manages to get to a seated position. He tries to scan the surrounding areas, but his vision seems distant and hazy. He stared at a car on fire down the street. Several seconds passed as he thought about what he was looking at, and it struck him that he must have lost a lot of blood. That he had been, or probably still is very close to death. Around him were several of his men, boys really, lying dead in the street. The oldest of the group was only twenty-six. Most were in their late teens and early twenties, all torn to pieces. He noted that there were only eight bodies in fatigues that he could see, and a dozen or more men were missing.

  He spotted the grey medical vehicle parked to the right of the garrison. It felt like it took him several minutes, but he finally pulled himself across the hot asphalt to the back of the van. He had to stop and take a rest in the shade of the van. He looked back and saw a path of fresh blood leading across the road from where he started. With a great deal of effort, he was able to push himself up against the vehicle and open the back door. Captain Horn groans in agony as he reaches above his head and pulls a red pack with a large white cross on it. It lands with a thud on corrugated metal flooring. Horn strains as he pulls it on his lap and flips open the cover. It contains numerous clear plastic sleeves with all kinds of medical supplies inside. A quiet moan, and a flicker of motion catches his eye to his left.

  His eyes strain to make out the movement down the street. In a moment of pure revolt, he makes out that it is the head and part of the torso belonging to Private Marsden. Horn leans closer and squints his eyes to get a better look. He now sees that the eyes are open and staring back at him. His mouth opening and closing repeatedly as if it were close enough to bite him though it sat twenty feet away. Captain Horn stared at it for several moments in disbelief before returning his focus to his more immediate health issues. The first thing he did was pull a canteen out of his pack and gulped down every drop of water it contained. He then pulled a syringe and three clear bottles from the medical pack. He lined them up on the tail of the Hummer. Then he proceeded to inject himself with pain killer, antibiotics, and adrenaline. After he was done, he took a little break, hoping the pain killer would kick in quickly. After a minute he slowly and painfully removed his fatigues, his white u
ndershirt was now mostly red. He was shocked to see that he had a dozens of bite marks, as well as several areas where fist size chunks of flesh were missing. They covered his chest, his arms, and his legs.

  He tended to each wound and packed the medical bag and some other essentials into his pack. He had to stretch almost to the cab of the hummer to get to boxes of ammo. It felt like it took him five minutes just to gather a couple weapons, and a handful of extra clips. He slid back out of the back of the van and began limping down the street. Captain Horn was trying to replay the previous evening through his head, as well as what he had seen so far today. Trying to find some logic in all of this madness. He tried to sort out the facts in his fuzzy brain while stumbling past his garrison.

  First, the people that came out of that medical center last night were not human. He had personally put a dozen slugs into one woman’s chest and she barely slowed down. They didn’t go down until you shot them in the head.

  He could so no signs of life, in the middle of Boulder, in the middle of the day. He’d been awake for maybe ten minutes and had not seen another living soul. There are bodies on the ground that have been there for hours. The blood clotting on the ground. No police, no ambulance, nothing. A singular thought popped into his head that was certain fact and absolute fiction at the same time, Zombies. He strained to get his mind to accept the idea as fact. Trying to force that idea to be reality was a real struggle. But with all the facts in hand, he could find no other conclusion, logical, or illogical. He made the decision that he needed to get to a secure location, he needed to properly care for his wounds, and he needed to rest and recover. He made slowly to the driver’s side door of his brown ford truck and eased himself up into the seat. He started the engine and began to roll slowly down the street.