Primus Unleashed

by Amber Wyatt

  “Hana, stop firing!” Hugh started to say as she was halfway through the next magazine.

  Too late, she realized their mistake as well. Firing nearly fifty bullets through the door in a horizontal line had catastrophically weakened their only barrier between themselves and the zombies outside. There were two huge bangs against the top of the door and then the top section of it caved in. She caught a glimpse of Albert’s muscular shoulders before the huge zombie ducked out of sight back into the darkness, and the gaping opening at the top of the doorway filled with zombies trying to climb in.

  Hana quickly fired a dozen rounds into their blank faces, knocking the first wave back and leaving a bloody spray of skull fragments and clumps of hair dripping off the opposite wall.

  “Just one more minute!” Dwayne shouted.

  “That’s what you said two minutes ago!” Hana snapped back, dropping out her magazine and slapping in a new one. What the fuck is he doing? “Only one more magazine left for my SCAR, then I’m down to my pistol. Whatever you’re doing, do it quick.”

  “Pour the gas on them. The coffee-colored stuff. Set them on fire!”

  “You do it, I’ll cover you,” said Hugh, unslinging his own assault rifle, and leaning his hips into the workbench to try and keep it up against the door.

  While Hugh opened fire at the heads of the zombies that appeared above the open half of the door, Hana quickly looked around for something to put the gas in and throw through the gap into the hallway outside. The plastic can itself was far too heavy for her to lift up. Then her eye fell on a cylindrical grease pump on the floor underneath the shelving at the back. Perfect! That will do. She grabbed the pump, shoved the nozzle deep into the can, and pulled back the plunger, sucking gas up into the pump. Then she ran to the side of the door, angled the nozzle through the gap so that it pointed down the hallway, and pushed the plunger as hard as she could.

  The gas sprayed gratifyingly far down the hallway, although once it disappeared into the dark shadows Hana could not see exactly how far. Her blood froze as she saw the shambling mass of zombies packed into the hallway, shoulder to shoulder, coming towards them. She ran back to the gas can and refilled the pump again, cursing as the stinking liquid spilled over her gloves.

  “How much longer are you going to be?” She shouted back over her shoulder as she emptied the second pump-full of gas down the hallway, covering the heads and shoulders of the crowded undead as they tripped and stumbled over the mounds of bodies that filled the corridor from side to side. She was working in a rhythm now, drawing gas into the pump and spraying it down the hallway as fast as she could.

  “Just another minute,” Dwayne answered. “Cover the doorway. Hugh, come here, I need your help to lift this up, man.”

  “We don’t have another fucking minute,” Hana cursed under her breath. As quick as she could she pumped a last load of gas over the already soaked heads of the zombies outside, and then took over Hugh’s position braced up against the workbench. Hugh took two magazines out of his belt pouch and laid them on the table for Hana, before quickly moving over to help Dwayne drag a propeller off of its protective pallet.

  Hana did not have time to see whatever it was that the big convict had planned. The next wave of zombies had clambered over the bodies of their fellows and were scratching rabidly at the door. Shit. I am soaked in gas! Her gloves were completely saturated with the stinking, flammable fluid. She ripped them off, thumbed off the safety on her rifle and opened fire, just as one of the zombies started climbing through the gap into the room. It had been a woman, Hana realized absent-mindedly, as its head exploded and long strands of hair splayed crazily outwards. Then the next one was climbing through. She shot that one, and the one behind it too.

  Hana kept firing with one hand and keyed her radio mike with the other. “Thomas, Rob, anyone out there, we are about to be overrun. If you are coming to help us, come now!”

  Behind her the two men were grunting with effort and she heard Dwayne giving urgent instructions to Hugh. In front of her the carnage was getting faster and faster as the zombies crawled up the growing ramp of their own dead and through the top of the door.

  “Guys we have a problem,” Hana shouted over her shoulder. “There’s so many bodies out there, they’re just using them as a ramp. They are going to be all over us any minute now!”

  There were corpses tumbling into the workshop faster and faster now, and for every undead that she shot, another two took its place. Hana swallowed hard as she realized that in just a few heartbeats, zombie teeth would probably be ripping into her skin. We aren’t going to make it. She thought sadly. Shit. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much. I hope it’s over quickly. Panic lurched deep inside her stomach and she fought to keep it under control. Although her pulse was racing with adrenalin, her concentration never wavered from aiming and firing.

  Then the table lurched backwards into her. Hana realized that the zombies were not only pushing against the door, but the weight of a mountain of corpses was also pushing against the door from the other side. Her boots slipped without any traction at all as she tried to brace herself and push back. She looked down in horror. Slick with blood and gasoline, the floor was as slippery as an ice-rink. The workbench was sliding too. All of a sudden there was a cracking of wood and the door burst inwards, spilling a wave of both dead and living zombies across the workshop floor.

  Hana was knocked sprawling to the floor on her back. Her assault rifle was empty. She scrabbled to get back to her feet and draw her pistol at the same time, and then suddenly Hugh grabbed her around the waist, picking her up. She bit off a scream of surprise as soon as it started, and flailed for balance as he dumped her on top of the workbench at the back of the room.

  “Get behind the bench,” he shouted, before whirling to fire at the zombies picking themselves up off the floor.

  Hugh fired quickly, fanning his gun from left to right, and the storm of bullets hammered the zombies back down to join the bodies covering the floor. Behind him, Dwayne used his can of gas to soak a tightly rolled ball of rags, which he quickly lit with his lighter and threw past Hugh into the hallway.

  There was an impressive whomp of flame as the dark, fume-filled corridor erupted in a bright, yellow fireball and then the hallway was full of burning zombies. A blast of heat washed into the room and over Hana, as if she had just opened the door to a giant oven. The zombies outside stopped advancing for a second, lit up like burning candles, but then carried on moving towards the workshop door. She swept away sudden tears, and loaded a new magazine into her rifle.

  “It’s not enough,” Hana’s voice cracked at the end, as despair and hopelessness overcame her. They don’t feel pain, they’re still coming. “It’s not enough fire to kill them.”

  “I don’t need them dead,” Dwayne laughed a dirty laugh that made her turn and look at his grinning face. “I just need them blind.”

  Dwayne was kneeling on the floor with a car battery behind the engine he had been working on. She saw that he had rotated the engine so that it was vertical in the cradle, and he had bolted the propeller in place at the top, so that it was horizontal, about five feet off the floor. He did something to the side of the engine and it roared into life. The propeller started rotating, and within a few seconds it was an invisible blur. Inside the small room the noise was deafening and she had to squint as the wind-stream from the propeller swept up dust and paper and blew it around like a small hurricane.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, her hair swirling around her face, as she suddenly understood Dwayne’s plan. Oh my God, she repeated to herself. It’s like a huge blender, and they are going to walk straight into it.

  Hugh slid over the workbench on his butt, landing beside her, and reloaded his SCAR. “If this doesn’t work, we fight them from behind here, okay?”

  Hana just nodded. Her mouth was still hanging open, as she looked to see what would happen when the first zombies walked into the room and into the propeller.

>   Dwayne crouched low, under the deadly, spinning blades, and pushed the cradle forward on its wheels towards the now open door. He stopped just as the blades were about to touch the doorframe, locked the wheels in place and braced his shoulder behind the cradle.

  He was just in time. Almost immediately the first burning zombie walked through the doorway into the invisible blades and was instantly decapitated. Its body was launched backwards as if from a catapult, and the flaming head shot straight up into the ceiling, before ricocheting back down into the propeller where it was instantly shredded into a messy pink cloud.

  Hana snapped her mouth shut and ducked down as blood and skull fragments sprayed around the room like a fine aerosol. I think I’m going to puke. But she could not take her eyes off the propeller blades spinning within inches of the doorway, and the burning zombies stumbling out of the raging inferno in the hallway straight into them.

  Zombie after zombie walked straight into the roaring blades of destruction, with Dwayne holding the cradle steady as each of them was shredded by the invisible disc. Like the first one, most of the bodies were thrown back into the hallway, knocking down the other approaching zombies like skittles. Those zombie heads not immediately destroyed, shot off at all angles and bounced crazily around the room, knocking over equipment and thudding into walls.

  Hana ducked involuntarily as a flaming skull flew past. Being hit by a high velocity, ten-pound ball could cause serious injury. Another thought occurred to her as the heads rolled under tables and disappeared into various corners of the room.

  “Watch out,” she shouted over the noise of the engine. “They can still bite!” Even as she said so, she kicked away a smoking head which had rolled a little too close for comfort.

  Hana fought against the nausea and her rising gorge. The room was coated in a thin layer of bloody slime and miniscule rags of skin, and it stank of gasoline, blood and burning flesh. Then a detached hand landed on the surface in front of her with a soggy thud. She looked up, surprised.

  Blinded by the burning gasoline, the zombies coming through the door had started to windmill their arms left, right and forward, trying to feel for their human prey. Now it was their hands and arms that were coming into touch with the spinning propeller a second before their necks and heads. Hana gaped in horror. The flying heads and the fine mist of blood had been bad enough. Now severed hands and a scattering of fingers pinwheeled high into the air, before landing all around the room with liquid splats.

  She looked back down at the hand on the table just inches away from her. It was a man’s hand, thick and pudgy with hairy fingers and a wide, gold ring on the third finger. The fingernails were just a little too long, with traces of dirt underneath. Okay, that’s it, I’m losing it, Hana felt her gorge rising again and this time there was no stopping it. She turned to the side, doubled over and began to throw up what felt like everything she had eaten in the last month.

  Her hair whipped around her face in the violent slipstream, coated in gasoline, soot, zombie blood, bits of zombie skin and now her own bitter vomit. Hana did not care. Gasping for breath, she struggled to keep her rifle pointed towards the doorway, her finger safely off the trigger. No matter how sick she felt, Hana was still ready to shoot any zombie that might miraculously evade the spinning blades. She glanced upwards and caught Hugh’s eye as he looked down to check on her. He looked equally nauseous, his face bone-white, and his jaw clamped tightly shut.

  Hana’s stomach spasmed one last time. She dry-retched painfully and spat out a mouthful of sour bile before smiling up at him. Still interested in me? I must look worse than those zombies right now.

  “Hell of a first date, huh?” Hugh asked through clenched teeth.

  Much to her own surprise, she laughed out loud. Okay buddy, maybe there is some hope for you yet. Then his eyes flickered back to the door and widened in horror. Hana followed his gaze to see what had scared him.

  Oh shit! Albert stood framed in the doorway, filling it with his vast bulk. Hana and Hugh both took aim at his head and opened fire at the same time, but he had already dropped to a crouch, fast as a panther, and their bullets cracked above his head into the faces of the zombies crowded behind him.

  Albert lunged forward under the spinning propeller and grabbed the whole engine in his muscular arms. Dwayne struggled to hold on to it, but Albert easily stood up in one swift motion, ripping the engine out of the smaller man’s grip. Dwayne dived sideways and rolled behind a workbench on the other side of the room, as Albert threw the roaring, deadly engine after him.

  Hana and Hugh dropped behind their own workbench just in time. As the propeller blades hit the floor at hundreds of miles an hour, they shattered into large fragments and sprayed around the room, cutting through almost everything in their path. Those that hit the outer wall of the hangar simply chopped straight through and kept going. In a fraction of a second there was a hailstorm of impacts all around the room as jagged pieces of propeller embedded themselves into walls and cabinets with teeth-rattling bangs. The engine itself shook itself wildly around the floor for a few seconds before detaching from the battery and cutting out.

  Hana peeked over the edge of the workbench. The zombies at the doorway had disappeared, cut down by the deadly, flying blades. Of Albert and Dwayne there was no sign. After the deafening maelstrom, the sudden silence was disorientating.

  “Dwayne, are you ok?” she called out, carefully scanning the room with her SCAR. Hugh was right next to her, his weapon aimed at the doorway.

  There was only an answering gurgle from behind the workbench where the other man had disappeared. Then Dwayne rose up from behind the bench. But he was not standing up by himself. An enormous, powerful, black hand was clamped around his throat. Dwayne kept on rising, almost to the ceiling, as Albert stood up from behind the table, lifting his former friend and choking him, one-handed. The giant zombie was horrifically injured. Its other arm was missing from just above the elbow, and the same blade that had cut off the arm had also inflicted a terrible wound in Albert’s side, slicing deep through his torso, exposing ribs and internal organs. Even as Albert stood up, a large pile of intestines spilled out of the open gap in his side and smacked wetly on to the floor.

  “Don’t shoot!” Hana said, even as she knew that Hugh was not going to shoot either. Neither of them had a clear shot. At this angle, their bullets would go straight through Albert’s head and into Dwayne, killing him as well. But just as she started to climb over the table to get a sideways shot at Albert, Hugh grabbed her arm.

  “The door!” he said urgently, just as the first zombies came through. This time there was no propeller to cut them down. These zombies had not been burned, their eyes worked perfectly, and their ravenous gazes were fixed upon Hana and Hugh as they poured in through the door, running straight towards them.

  Side by side, the two of them opened fire with their assault rifles, aiming and shooting as fast as they could. Neither of them missed with a single shot, but the zombies were getting so close that even as they died, their bodies were falling and hitting the workbench that Hana and Hugh were sheltering behind.

  They are too close, Hana thought to herself, working through her options. Once this magazine runs out, I won’t have time to reload. I’ll go straight to my pistol, she decided. When her pistol ran out, she did not know what she was going to do.

  On the other side of the room, Dwayne struggled desperately in Albert’s vice-like grip, his feet kicking two feet above the floor. He had already grabbed for his pistol, but his holster was empty and he had no idea where his weapon was. He tried to pry open Albert’s hand from his throat, but he might as well have been trying to pull apart a granite statue with his bare hands.

  My knife. He thought weakly. The blood-flow to his brain was completely cut off and Dwayne could feel his consciousness fading away. His left hand flashed down and drew his knife from the back of his belt. He tried reaching Albert’s face but the other man’s arm was too long. Dwayne was
only able to stab weakly and ineffectively into the zombie’s shoulder, inflicting a couple of shallow cuts before the knife dropped from his nerveless hand and clattered to the floor.

  I’m fading, he thought. He could hear the other two firing, but could not understand why they were not shooting at Albert. He’s not killing me, Dwayne realized, as his thoughts became dim. He’s saving me for something worse. His vision narrowed to a dark tunnel, and at the end of it was Albert’s grinning face.

  Then that face exploded in a grotesque mess of teeth and eyeballs and Dwayne dropped to the floor. He sucked in deep, painful breaths and winced as a deafening storm of bullets ripped through the room, seemingly just inches above his head.

  Hana and Hugh were also flat on the floor behind their own table, as murderously accurate bursts of machine-gun fire hammered through the heads of every zombie in the room, dropping them instantly. More gun fire blasted from just outside, down the hallway, and from even further away, echoing far off in the distant depths of the hangar.

  “It’s Thomas and the others,” she shouted gleefully at Hugh, taking the opportunity to reload her rifle. “I knew they would come for us.”

  Hugh looked over the top of the table after the firing had stopped, but froze with a strange look on his face. Then he stood up slowly with his hands up.

  “It’s not Thomas,” he said.

  “What?” Hana was confused. She stood up next to Hugh and saw that the workshop was full of soldiers in black uniforms and body armor. She raised her hands in confusion. They were aiming their weapons directly at Hugh and herself. Behind them, two of the soldiers covered Dwayne as he slowly stood up, grimacing as he massaged his bruised throat.

  “Don’t shoot, we’re human,” Hana said loudly, to the one who looked like he was in charge. A gunshot rang out and she flinched. But it was only one of the soldiers at the back of the room, putting a bullet into a severed zombie head. There was a second one lying nearby. It was blind and burned, but the jaws still spasmodically opened and clamped shut. The soldier fired again and the head stopped moving.