by Henson, Lynn
Tiffany nodded, “Stay with me, please. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Ok,” he replied, and hunkered down the way Bree did, looking out at the desert beyond the fence. The horizon was undulating as far as he could see in either direction. There must’ve been thousands of them coming this way. They heard footsteps to their left, and a figure came out of the darkness. It was a soldier Blake realized, relaxing. The soldier had what looked like a shotgun with like a can on the muzzle. The soldier aimed at a forty-five-degree angle into the sky and fired. Whatever he fired disappeared into the darkness. The soldier paused to reload and then ran past their right side and repeated the process. “What’s he doing?” Tiffany asked uneasily.
“I don’t know.”
The helicopter flew directly overhead, it’s light illuminating an area running parallel to the fence but still far from it. There were pockets of white smoke arrayed in a line directly ahead of them. They looked at the expanding white cloud ahead of them and figures started to emerge from it. They hadn’t even noticed that the soldier who passed them a couple of minutes ago was running back in the direction he’d come from. “Tear gas had negative effect. Repeat. Negative effect,” the soldier said into his radio as he jogged past them. The figures had begun to take on more definition as they continued their slow approach. The horizon still pulsed in the background but was close enough to discern that there was a wall of zombies that inched closer and closer. The helicopter came in low and there were several rapid wooshing sounds as it fired air to surface missiles at the zombie horde. There was a series of explosions and the desert was illuminated in bright yellow light as people were launched into the air by the explosions. From behind them, there came the sounds of mortar launchers and after several moments, more explosions blossomed beyond the fence. Blake hit the ground, lying prone and pointed his rifle at the fence. Tiffany did the same, eyes wide open as they peered out into a desert illuminated by fire.
The desert out there was a sea of zombies. The helicopter circled overhead, the gunner on board firing into the crowd. How was he even choosing where to shoot at? He can’t miss, there’s so many of them. The people continued to walk slowly forward, unimpressed by the explosions and the hail of bullets. They closed to within five feet of the fence when they heard distant yelling from their left.
“Open fire! Weapons free!” they heard.
Blake hesitated, despite having seen hundreds of zombies die in fiery balls right before his eyes. Tiffany looked at him and her hesitation gave him resolve. He aimed at the closest figure who had closed to about three feet of the fence. He was a young child, wearing cargo shorts down to his knees and a tie-dyed t-shirt with a peace symbol on it. His face was ashen grey and his mouth gaped open as he moved. His head turned slightly to look at Blake and his arms came forward. Blake felt like he was somehow detached from his body, his mind screaming at him to pull the trigger to the horror of his conscience. The boy reached the fence and he pushed his weight on it. The fence held easily, the chain links bowing only slightly. Other zombies started to appear at the boy’s side and they all started pushing on the fence as well.
“Blake?” Tiffany asked, the fear coloring her voice a pitch higher than normal.
“God damn it,” Blake heard himself say. He pulled the trigger and the boy’s head jerked back, and the child slumped forward, fingers still entangled into the fence. Tiffany’s rifle barked and a zombie was forced back into other zombies who stopped his backward momentum and pushed him back forward.
“Aim for the head, Tiff,” he told her, blinking back tears.
“I’m trying,” she sobbed, and her rifle barked again. Zombies fell to the ground in front of the fence. The rifle stopped recoiling even though he was continuing to pull the trigger and he dully realized that he’d run out of ammo. He pulled a fresh magazine from his pants pocket and pulled the empty one free from his rifle. He replaced it with the fresh one and resumed firing. Zombies dropped with indifference, physics from bullet impacts being their only reaction. After the boy was fat guy with a Hawaiian shirt, after him a skinny Asian woman with sunglasses half hanging from her face, then a black high school student in basketball shorts and matching jersey, after that a redneck looking guy with the beginnings of a muffin top pouring over the top of his gray shorts and covered by his soiled t-shirt. He shot a large black man wearing a dark blue medical outfit. He vaguely looked like Danny Glover when he was in his prime and Blake had to put two bullets into him because the first one only took his ear off. After him was a large black woman with long dreads pulled back into a ponytail wearing the same looking medical scrubs. Did they know each other? The faces started to all jumble together after that. Man, woman, child, it all started to feel the same as he pulled the trigger again and again. Aim. Shoot. Repeat. All sense of time was lost with only the bodies that were piled up in front of the fence to act as a timepiece. All the zombies that continued to walk forward were pushing the bodies that were flush with the fence into it, causing it to warp. He was out of ammo again and checked his pockets to find that he was out of magazines. That snapped him out of his routine and he got up and looked around.
To his left, Lisa had fallen back and was moving towards an army truck that was off-roading it in their direction. The truck ground to a halt, kicking up dust made visible by the truck’s headlights and a skinny teenager in clothing too big for him came out of the back. Someone in the truck handed him a box and the teenager struggled with it. Lisa came to his rescue and they each grabbed a handle and moved the box to where Bree was still lying prone and firing into the horde. Kim came over to where Lisa and the teenager had set the box down and opened it. It could only have been ammunition Blake realized. Tiffany had jogged up to him while this was going on. “I’m out of ammo!” she told him.
“They brought more,” he replied, pointing at the truck.
Tiffany looked at him strangely and asked, “You alright?”
He nodded mostly out of habit. She held his gaze for a moment then ran over to the back of the truck. The teenager who had helped Lisa with their box of ammo was jogging back to the truck. Tiffany was handed a box of ammunition out of the back of the truck by someone and the teenager sprinted the last little bit to help her. She started jogging back with the box and said something politely dismissive to the teenager who stared after her as she ran back towards Blake. The teenager stood there dumbfounded until someone in the truck yelled at him and he sprung back into action, climbing back in. The truck turned around and went back the way it came. Tiffany ran past him holding the unwieldy box and set it down close to where they had been shooting. He jogged over and removed more magazines from the box, filling up his pockets with as many as he could comfortably hold. Tiffany had already gotten a bunch of ammunition and had chosen to kneel down on one knee to shoot. Like those plastic army men, I used to have. He stood and looked at the box. Then he grabbed the handle on one side and tried to lift it. It was hard to even lift one side up. He let it drop to the ground and looked at Tiffany again who had a grim expression on her face as she fired at the zombies, taking her time to aim carefully. He gave up thinking about it, returning to her side in his prone position and resumed firing.
They had to widen their firing arc as the zombies were spilling around the section of the fence where they were concentrating their fire. The bodies that had piled up there as well as the zombies that were stubbornly trying to go forward had caused the ones on the sides to move to their right. Fortunately, the mortars were trying to thin out the areas that didn’t have people covering them, but this just meant that zombies were trickling up to the fence, their numbers growing slowly. They tried to thin out the zombies that were encroaching on the unprotected part of the fence by repositioning themselves further to the right. Tiffany moved their ammo box with them, and Blake just let her deal with it since it was nearly effortless for her. Blake quickly fell into his mindless routine of aiming, shooting, reloading. He was vaguely aware of Tiffany at his sid
e sometimes shifting stances between reloads. He also observed the helicopter would sometimes come into view, spotlight playing over the sea of zombies like they were at a live concert for some superstar. He’d gotten used to the explosions, the ragdolling of people, and shooting at his former fellow human beings like they were no more than shooting gallery targets. I wish I could block out this horrible smell though. His sense of time once again disappeared. He was only able to subconsciously mark its passing by the very gradual emptying of the ammunition box as they continued to fire round after round at the zombies. As he depleted yet another magazine and turned around to get more out of the box, something to their right caught his eye.
“Oh. Oh shit,” he observed.
Zombies were on their side of the fence and walking towards them. There were several, but in front leading the shambling charge were three short Asian women dressed in casino dealer uniforms. Black slacks, vests, and name tags, all marred by the long walk through the desert. Behind them looked to be people from the same area including a scantily clad withered woman who had somehow managed to keep her over the top feathered headdress on. Blake even saw an Elvis impersonator limping forward, sequins on his bodysuit glittering as the explosions brought bursts of light into the predawn hours. Or hell, maybe it is Elvis. Who the fuck knows? He laughed bitterly which got Tiffany’s attention. She looked at him and then at the Vegas zombies coming towards them. “Blake?” she asked, her voice filled with terror.
He stood and emptied a magazine at the zombies that were coming towards them. He scored some hits, but none of the zombies fell. To his left, there was a metallic rustling of the chain link fence. He looked over and the fence had been flattened in a section. Zombies thrashed about on top of it, flailing about as the ones behind them moved forward, tripping over their comrades and pulling themselves forward with their hands to get past the fence. He shot at the fence zombies, but he hadn’t reloaded. The rifle fell from his hands and he sank to his knees. “Blake?” Tiffany asked, panic coloring her voice. “What are you doing?” She dropped one of the casino dealers, ejected her empty magazine, slammed a new one in place and aimed at another of the Vegas-themed undead. “Hey, Blake?” she said in a calm and composed voice. He turned to look at her.
“What’s the point?” he asked himself dejectedly. “We’ve been at this all day. What do we have to show for it? Look out there! There’s no end to them!” This place was supposed to be safe! It’s not supposed to end like this!
She was kneeling down, carefully aiming down her rifle and firing in a slow and steady rhythm. She stole a glance at him to make sure she had his attention. “Listen to me. We’ve got to get out of here. Pick up your rifle and let’s go.” She fired again, Blake looked and another dealer had been dealt out. “Now. Hurry. Please.”
He tried to shake his confusion and despair from his head and picked up the rifle. He registered that it was out of ammo again. Tiffany stood up then and grabbed his wrist, she dragged him like a sack of potatoes to the ammo box then set her rifle down next to it. She proceeded to take the remaining contents of the box and shove them into Blake’s hands. He stuffed as much as he could in his pockets while she did the same thing. He looked back and the zombies had closed to within five feet of them. Tiffany picked up the rifle again and nodded at him. “Time to go,” she said and headed back towards the way they had come. Blake followed after her and tried not to look back. They ran over to where Bree, Kim, and Lisa had camped out. Lisa had shunned her rifle, setting it aside and was handing magazines to Kim and Bree when they ran out while telling them where to direct their fire. Tiffany ran over to them, startling them out of their polished system. “Tiffany?” asked Lisa uncertainly, “What happened?”
“They got through the fence. They’re coming this way. We’ve got to leave,” Tiffany explained. Blake stood there, numb. It’s not supposed to be like this! This place is supposed to be safe!
“Get as much ammo as you can,” Bree told Kim and Lisa. She continued to shoot at their section of fence where they’d managed to pile up a large assortment of corpses. After a minute, Kim and Lisa were ready to go. Bree emptied her rifle at the fence and quickly filled her pockets with ammunition. Then they all jogged in the direction where their cars were waiting for them. They passed by where Gao and Doris should have been, but there was no sign of them. This section of the fence had been flattened and zombies were already well past it. “Damn it,” Kim exclaimed.
“Let’s move that way,” Bree said pointing to the left of the zombies that blocked their way back towards the cars. “Maybe we can get around them.”
They headed diagonal of the new group of zombies, everyone shooting as they went. It wasn’t effective though because they were concentrating more on moving than shooting, and the zombies didn’t care that they were being shot at. They gave up with the rifles and just concentrated on moving quickly while trying to avoid running into anything nasty. They skirted around a group of zombies which was increasing in size from a breach in the fence. Once they made it past the ones that were blocking their way they angled back towards the fence. They ran into one of the defenders who was valiantly trying to keep them at bay, but he’d gone through a lot of his ammo because what he lacked in precise aim he made up for in volume of shots fired. As a result, his fence was all but demolished but had been built up with a mound of perforated corpses that zombies were crawling over.
“They got through the fence behind us! Time to go!” Kim yelled at the middle-aged shooter. He joined them and they pressed on, conveying the same message to those they encountered going back up the line. Everyone they warned came with them and they had grown into a small armed mob. Bree was still careful despite their increased numbers and continued to lead them in directions that avoided zombies in their way regardless of what the strangers in their group chose to do. When they finally got back to where their vehicles were parked, they found that the area was in chaos. Blake noticed that the minivan was gone, with just the GT-S sitting there next to an army jeep. The soldier that had oriented them to the area jogged over to them when he saw them. “What happened?” the soldier asked.
Tiffany looked at Blake expectantly. When he just stared back at her she addressed the soldier. “They got through the fences,” Tiffany told him. “We couldn’t stay in line.”
He nodded, “You did the right thing. We’re going to fall back so that our mortar teams can continue firing without worrying about hitting us. Fall back to the second defensive line.”
People scurried away to their vehicles as the soldier got into a Humvee and drove off to round up anyone still on the line. Blake followed the girls over to the GT-S, still feeling numb. “What happened to the minivan?” Kim asked him.
He shrugged. “I, uh, left the keys in it. In case it was in the way and someone needed to move it.”
“It’s ok,” Bree reassured him, “We’ll fit. Let’s go back.”
They crammed into the GT-S and Blake passively sat in the middle seat between Tiffany and Lisa. Bree took off unceremoniously and headed back in the direction of the barracks. The numbness that was clouding Blake’s brain was gradually starting to clear now that he was sitting in a car and headed away from the combat zone. The feeling of indecisive despair was gradually being replaced with shame and embarrassment. He stared down at his shoes and tried to shrink back into his seat. “I’m fucking tired,” Kim proclaimed.
“I feel alright,” Lisa said.
“Well, that’s because you decided to feed us ammo instead of actually doing any shooting,” Kim threw back at her. “Hours of continuously firing that rifle would make anyone’s arms turn into jelly.”
Blake realized that his arms did feel like he’d been lifting weights all day. He rubbed them slowly as he asked in a quiet voice, “How can you be so normal?”
“What?” Kim asked, confused.
“We... we killed those people. You’re acting like nothing happened,” he said, emotion choking up his voice.
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nbsp; “Blake, it’s not like that,” Bree reassured him gently.
“I heard her. I don’t know how many people I just shot or watched blown into little pieces, and she’s acting like we just had a tough workout,” he challenged, voice sounding shrill.
Kim turned to her left so she could look back at him. “Us or them Blake. I told you before I’d do what it takes to protect the people who are important to me. Do I feel remorse? Of course, I do. But if they get us then my life as I know it will end, maybe forever.” He looked down again, shame winning out over his outrage. “Look,” she said sternly, and he looked into her eyes. “This is how I deal with stress. I like to pretend everything is cool because eventually, I’ll believe it. Besides that, as long as I don’t lose focus of what’s important, then eventually things will be cool. My advice? Stop being all emo. It’s going to get you killed.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, then he nodded. She raised an eyebrow at him with a look that invited further debate. When none came, she offered him a small smile and turned back around.
They passed by a group of people who were setting up barbed wire in a line across a section of the depot that was about five miles away from the fence they were at. Humvees were positioned behind the people and the barbed wire, keeping watch. “That’s not going to hold them long,” Blake observed.
“It will slow them down,” Bree said as she drove through the gap they’d left for the road.
“They’re already slow. That’s not the problem,” Kim said. “We were out there for a long time and we hardly made a dent in them. We should think about a fallback plan.”
“You think this depot will get overrun?” Blake asked in disbelief.
“Remember what the guy in charge said,” Bree pointed out. “They’ve lost contact with many of the other bases. And this place is only for storing ammunition. Most of the people here aren’t even military.”