MZS- North East

by K. D. McAdams

  The issue is not so much that I was wrong—there is definitely a zombie apocalypse. The issue is that I could have done better. Again the thought that sitting tight and riding this thing out may have been the best move enters my mind. What if there was a shelter or a refugee camp out by where we spent last night? Maybe we passed people that really needed our help.

  “Do you know if that chopper was inbound or outbound?” Todd doesn’t care what Terri thinks of him, he just asks whatever he’s thinking.

  “We’re all pretty sure it was inbound. When people realized the shit was hitting the fan, tons of them went to the ports. A whole flotilla left yesterday around noon. I heard they were meeting up with an aircraft carrier that was coming up from the DC area.”

  “And why do you think the chopper was coming in from the carrier?” Todd has followed her leap of logic, but wants supporting information.

  “The vice president was in the city for a fundraising dinner. No one had heard from him for the first twenty-four hours. About thirty minutes before I heard the chopper, there were reports that he was safe and looking for extraction.”

  “Any word on the president?” I ask.

  “El pres? He’s probably on Nantucket, selling t-shirts!” Tucker says. He’s the only one who laughs at his joke. El Pres is the screenname of the guy who runs Barstool Sports.

  “Most reports have the president safe. Somewhere in the south or at least heading south,” Terri explains.

  “Do the reports have suggestions on what we’re supposed to do?” Cupcake asks. He really doesn’t want to have to make a decision.

  “Sit tight.”

  “So the thing about nuking the metropolitan areas was urban legend,” I state flatly.

  “Nuking the metropolitan areas? Like New York? Are you fucking serious?” Terri is more angry than scared.

  The large woman looks at the tablet in her hand and flicks and taps wildly. Part of me thinks she could launch a nuclear missile if she’s not careful with those buttons.

  “Can’t reach my wi-fi. I only came down here to see if you knew anything helpful. You don’t so I’m going back to my place.” She looks around the room “You can come if you want.”

  Terri doesn’t wait for us to say anything. She storms to the door and rips it open. Before we can even recommend caution, she is through and heading down the hall. For a big girl, she’s awfully quick; if anyone wants to go with her, they better hustle.

  Tucker is the first to leave. He may be in love. Todd is not far behind, but McLean sits down on the couch.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Cupcake says. He may be planning to push McLean to lead the group.

  “Back in a bit. Don’t go anywhere,” I say as I leave; they seem more nervous than those of us blindly following the girl we just met.

  In the hallway, I look up at the high ceilings. The space is narrow but the vertical openness makes if feel large. One of the doors on the left side has an old transom window. I wonder if this was once an office building that was converted to apartments?

  Mid-afternoon light dances through the window, giving the hallway a very artistic feel. The light illuminates the dirt on the window. Red clay-colored smudges are on the bottom of the pane. They must be from where someone pushes to open it. But something about the smudges feels weird, like they aren’t at the right angles to be from hands pushing.

  “Hey Terri, you got any beers at your place?” Todd yells up to her.

  I wonder if we’re all going to be all cute again when we remind him that they’re attracted to noise.

  The buzzing fills my chest. They’re coming.

  There’s no time to callout and warn them. The transom window smashes to the ground. Falling right after it is a skinny old zombie. It crashes into the floor and the snap of his neck fills the narrow space.

  “Holy shit!” Terri screams.

  Tucker runs the last few yards between them and tackles her into her partially open apartment door. We didn’t bring our weapons, stupid. No sane person would open their door to let us in when this monster is in the hallway with us.

  Defying its broken vertebrae, the undead old man staggers to his feet. The buzzing coming from somewhere inside of it does not stop. When its nose catches our scent, moaning joins the buzz in a creepy symphony.

  The creature is locked on to me and progressing forward. I can run to the stairs, but then where? What if there are a bunch more of them in the stairwell? Stand and fight is my best option.

  Will Todd wait until there’s a winner before he does anything? The strategy would be to let me wrangle the zombie while he runs to Terri’s door and have her let him in. They’ll have to deal eventually, but they can calm down and arm themselves.

  “Pat-O,” Todd says, surprising me.

  The zombie makes a slow shambling turn to find the sound. It doesn’t take long to lock onto Todd’s scent. Damn, these things are efficient.

  “Think my fingers are long enough to scratch his brain?” Todd yells from his side of the undead.

  This kill happens in slow-motion. Maybe because I can see Todd’s face almost the whole time. He takes two authoritative steps forward and pulls his right hand back. I want to remind him that a haymaker won’t hurt the zombie; its spine is already broken.

  Todd doesn’t throw a haymaker. When his hand comes forward, I can see his first and second fingers are extended. He looks like a little boy making a pretend gun with his hand.

  A zombie hand flails on his rib cage and the other one is grabs at his left arm. With perfect control over his hand, Todd plunges his fingers directly in the eye socket.

  The slurping sound and spray of milky gray fluid add a new level of grossness to a world that I thought couldn’t get any more disgusting. The zombie’s body goes limp, but Todd doesn’t stop. He continues pushing on the skull as it falls to the ground.

  With the undead body flat on its back, Todd starts to rotate around it, fingers still in the eye socket, digging for gold. I’m not sure I could have done what he just did.

  I’m grateful and frightened at the same time. Killing shouldn’t be easy and it shouldn’t be fun. Using your bare hands to kill should give any man pause to think on what’s right and wrong. Todd never hesitated, and I could swear he was smiling for at least part of the time.

  McLean

  Chapter 19

  Whatever happened in the hall was not good. I shouldn’t act like I don’t know what it was. There was a zombie out there. Sooner or later I’m going to have to experience zombies, and the death and gore they bring with them, up close. I would just prefer to wait and make it later.

  Cupcake is just sitting, staring off into space. There’s no way he didn’t hear what was going on out there. This must be his approach to coping.

  There were no knocks on my door and now there is silence. Either Patrick made it to Terri’s or he’s dead. If he’s dead, does that mean he’ll turn?

  “Cupcake, have you seen it happen?” I ask.

  He looks at me with blank eyes.

  “Have you seen anyone… turn?”

  Slowly his eyes come back to life. He’s thinking. I hope I don’t make him replay any particularly horrible memories.

  “No. Actually, now that you mention it, we haven’t experienced a living person becoming a zombie,” he says. “Thanks for giving me a fresh hell to look forward to.”

  “It’s just… The guys in the hall… If Patrick is lying in the hallway, bitten, when will we know that he’s turned?”

  Patrick is my concrete example and my concern right now. Big-picture, though, this might be important. Like if we’re on a bridge in the car and someone gets bitten through a window, do we have a few minutes to get all the way across or will there be a new zombie in seconds?

  “Well, we heard a report that the disease or whatever is spread through bodily fluids. If you get their blood or spit in your mouth, you’re done for. Certainly if they bite you and pass saliva directly into your bloodstream, it’s the e
nd,” Cupcake says, exhausted.

  I nod. “So someone must have studied this or at least observed it closely.”

  “I guess it would be good to know, but what are we supposed to do, infect someone on purpose?”

  Cupcake is definitely not a leader. He’s not thinking about problems and solutions; he’s thinking about actions. Action is the smallest element of any plan. A leader needs to think about cause and effect, understand the “why” of a situation and the ramifications of changing the variables.

  “You’re sort of leading this crew; were you in the military?” I ask.

  “Hah! I’m kind of anti-authority,” Cupcake says casually.

  He’s not. He probably thinks he is or wants to be, but he most definitely is not against authority. I bet he secretly loves authority. Having someone tell you what to do can be comforting, like a warm blanket.

  Cupcake gets up out of his chair and walks over to the window. He picks up the binoculars and starts scanning the buildings across the street.

  “Your rig, your rules. Seems like these guys consider you the authority,” I say.

  “I like my friends and I wanted to help them,” Cupcake replies. He brings the binoculars down from his eyes but doesn’t turn away from the window. “A few weeks ago, we were out boozing and the topic of hotwiring a car came up. I was hammered and just finished a marathon viewing of some reality series about preppers. I told Tucker that if the shit hit the fan, I would steal a Humvee, drive way out to the woods, and live off the land ‘til it was all over.”

  “So when the zombies came, he called you,” I say, understanding finally. “You could have told him it was all a lie.”

  “I tried. But I do know how to hotwire a car, thanks to my dad’s midlife crisis, and I have hunted and fished and camped. Once the news made things clear, I was like, fuck it, might be worth a shot,” he says.

  Cupcake stops scanning the buildings and focuses his stare. I kind of want to hear about his dad’s midlife crisis now.

  “Crap,” he says. He lifts the binoculars to his eyes again and studies a single spot.

  “Cupcake?”

  “I see another survivor, across the street and down the block. It’s a kid.”

  I jump to my feet and rush to the window. Another survivor is a good thing. Having a kid tag along while we slay the undead and run for our lives could be tricky, but we can’t leave them behind, can we?

  At the window, I quickly pick up where Cupcake is pointing. He gives me the binoculars while he pulls out his phone. I get a better look and see that there are three kids, looks like a young teenager and a couple of seven- or eight-year-olds.

  “Todd wants us to bring the weapons down to Terri’s place,” Cupcake says, interrupting my distant thoughts.

  “What about the kids?”

  He looks at me intently. I can see the scales balancing out in his head.

  “We get those guys their weapons, and then I go and get the kids,” he says.

  I nod. “I’m coming with you.”

  Their point about having trouble planning is becoming clearer. The distractions we face are not your typical choices. Nearly every action has a life-or-death consequence.

  “Do you have a broom or a mop or anything?” Cupcake asks.

  “Seriously, you want to clean something now?”

  “We need the handle,” he explains. “Sharpen one end and you have a spear. If you have to deal with a zombie, go for the eyes or the mouth; they’re the best access to the brain cavity.”

  While I get my mop from the small linen closet, Cupcake texts on his phone. The mop has an aluminum handle; I’m not sure how we could fashion that into a point. My broom is beside the fridge, but honestly I can’t remember if the handle is wooden or aluminum. I have to go over to check and I’m glad to find out that the broom has a wooden handle. I unscrew the head and stare blankly at the shaft. How am I supposed to sharpen this?

  Cupcake walks into the kitchen and pulls my large chef’s knife from the butcher block. With quick powerful strokes, he hacks at the end of the stick. A sloppy rough point slowly forms and I can see sweat beading on his forehead.

  He may be tactical, but he is practical, too.

  Once he’s satisfied with the point, he hands me the spear and heads to the door. He pauses with a loose grip on the knob and turns to face me.

  “Quick and quiet,” he mouths to me.

  As soon as the door is open I realize that I don’t know what to expect from the hallway. Is Patrick out here? Or Tucker? Todd texted requesting the weapons so it’s not him. Are there a bunch of zombie corpses?

  We move quickly enough that I can ignore most of the details. There is one body on the floor and not really any blood. It seems an odd circumstance for a zombie encounter. Fortunately, I don’t recognize the body.

  Tucker must have been watching through the peephole. The door to Terri’s apartment is open before we even get there. We race through the opening and it closes silently behind us. Tucker flips the locks and a collective sigh is released into the small space.

  This apartment is awesome. I think it’s the same size as mine but is perfectly decorated. The computer screens and food wrappers I expect to find are not here. In fact, I’m not sure there’s even a TV in here.

  “Sanctuary” is the best way to describe it. You could come home from an awful day at work and just melt into relaxation when you walk through the door. There are two big couches with tons of pillows. One corner is covered with bookshelves neatly ordered and clean. A comfy-looking tub chair and a small lamp complete the reading area.

  “There.” Cupcake’s voice startles me out of my jealousy.

  At the window he and Patrick look toward the kids.

  Patrick doesn’t look for long. He hands the binoculars to Todd, who takes a while observing. Patrick and Cupcake silently study the street below.

  “I’m going,” Cupcake finally announces.

  “Of course we’re going, but we need a plan,” Patrick says, making me proud.

  “Where does the back entrance let out?” Cupcake asks the apartment at large.

  “Bust and run?” Todd summarizes the plan before Terri or I can answer.

  “Yeah. Find the path with the fewest zombies and fight our way over to their building. Grab a drink and head back here,” Cupcake says, roughing out his strategy.

  “Love it man,” Todd whoops. “Kill bad guys, save good guys, that’s what we do!” I notice he is enthusiastic about the killing first and the saving second.

  “Hold on. I know there aren’t a ton of choices, but let’s think about this for a second. Is there something we can do to even slightly improve our chances? Dying while trying to save those kids doesn’t get them saved. If we’re not going to come out of a rescue net positive head count, maybe we shouldn’t do it,” Patrick says, erasing some of the good feeling I had a second ago.

  I stare at him. “Are you saying we don’t even try to rescue those kids?” The shock comes through my voice.

  “Of course not. I’m saying, let’s come up with a plan so we can expect success, instead of just winging it and hoping for success,” Patrick says.

  “All right Pat-O, let’s hear it then,” Todd says, a challenge to Patrick’s authority.

  The standoff is surprisingly tense. This is where leadership is determined. If Patrick has a half-decent plan, he will become the one in charge. Cupcake could step in to diffuse the situation and maintain control, but it doesn’t seem likely.

  Patrick looks around. “I didn’t say I had one, I said we need one,” he says.

  The arguing starts softly but builds fast. Terri shushes the guys, but it only lowers the volume.

  While they fight, I make my way to the window. Crossing the street should be easy, even in New York. The problem is that there is a group of former people in the middle of the street that don’t want us to cross.

  How do we get them to let us cross? Better still, how do we get them out of the street?
/>   It would be great if someone tried to escape and lure them away. Unfortunately, that’s a suicide mission, and I don’t want to suggest it for fear that someone would actually volunteer. I’m starting to see why Cupcake isn’t so interested in being the leader.

  The kids are in a corner building and their cross street looks relatively clear. We don’t need to get the zombies to go far, just in the opposite direction. It could be a distraction or misdirection, not a consistent lure.

  Todd full-out yells at Patrick. “Well all I’m saying is don’t fucking shit on his idea when don’t have one of your fucking own!”

  “So help me, I will kick you all out of my apartment. They’re attracted to sound!” Terri snaps.

  They’re attracted to sound.

  “I have a plan,” I announce.

  Patrick

  Chapter 20

  I can’t believe that McLean is coming with us. It was her plan though, and she insisted. Todd tried to be dismissive—I think he’s a little sexist—but even he admitted it was better than anything we were coming up with.

  Terri does not have any magazines in her apartment: the digital age has robbed us of armor for use in the zombie wars. Fortunately, she did have a stack of cardboard banker’s boxes and a few rolls of duct tape.

  Unlike my silver duct tape though, hers has designs all over it. Flowers, cats and umbrellas cover the cardboard that wraps around forearms and shins. In contrast, my armor looks cool. I also have a little pride that mine is from wine boxes, but I’m not going to brag.

  Step one of the plan was to get the kids’ attention. We used a mirror and the flashlight app on one of our phones to shine a light into their window. It wasn’t easy and almost caused the whole plan to unravel.

  Todd got pretty pissed off at McLean while people were trying to aim the light signal. She held onto her turn a little too long, and he was convinced she was wasting valuable time. When she finally gave up, he was crazy-determined to succeed, which may have been part of her plan. Eventually Todd got the light focused and was able to stick with it long enough to flash it in the teen’s eye.