The Wal-Mart crew was about a dozen strong, and once Bill explained the situation, they were quite receptive to the group from the Dojo. Most of them were happy to see other faces, glad for both the company and the knowledge that there were other survivors. The trucks were unloaded quickly, and then staged outside the loading docks for quick loading or, if need be, escape. The rest of the vehicles were parked in the auto garage.
Bill and Dee began sorting out priorities for securing the building against the coming zombie assault. With any luck, the leading edge of the zombie horde would pass without noticing them, if they could stay dark and quiet. However, they could not rely on that, and they would eventually be noticed in some way or another, which would inevitably bring Zed's full strength down upon them. They had to fortify.
There were two main entrances to the store proper, and a third through the garden center. The latter was enclosed within a sturdy fence and had locking gates, but the two main entrances were comprised more of glass than of stone or metal, and had to be further secured. They decided that the best course of action would be to simply forget about the outer wall and fortify farther in, making two choke points out of the inner passageways where the anti-theft tag detectors were located. They worked out a way to stack shopping carts by lashing them together with zip-ties, and laid them three high and three deep in a makeshift barricade, wheels at odd angles so that the whole structure couldn't be rolled in any direction. Next, right-triangle wooden frames about four feet high were constructed from two-by-fours to support the barricade from behind, with metal shelving screwed into the front, to prevent entrance in the event that the shopping carts were somehow removed. The frames were moved into position and bolted straight into the floor. Sand bags were piled over the two-by-fours where the bolts had been driven, in order to prevent the whole structure from being lifted out of the ground.
Bags of gravel were piled against the gate in the garden center so that it couldn't be pushed in. It was built to open out, but it was the only part of the structure that had moving parts and was not welded together, and was therefore the most likely to give under sustained assault. The store had two powered lifts, and these were positioned under roof access hatches at opposite ends of the store. After being raised into place, in order to conserve power, ladders were secured to the criss-crossing supports with metal pipe strapping. Free-hanging rope ladders would have to be constructed later, so that the lifts could be used elsewhere.
All this work was done by candlelight or flashlight, as the interior of the store had no windows. With the exception of the three entranceways, it made no difference whether it was night or day. Dee made a mental note that the generators would have to be installed as soon as the zombie assault was dealt with - she could probably scavenge wiring supplies from what was already in the store, but she would much rather take another trip to The Home Depot. The sun was setting, and the zombies were coming within a stone's throw of the building. Cameron gave his instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails again, this time with instructions on how to mix in motor oil to thicken the fuel, now that he had access to it. He explained how this process would make it sticky, like napalm. Dee and Seamus showed everyone how to use the shotguns and rifles in the sporting goods department. There was plenty of ammunition to go around. Those who had any experience whatsoever with firearms were selected for gun duty, and Cameron took the remainder for his grenadiers. All told, there would be eight shotgunners at the barricades, four riflemen and eight grenadiers on the roof, and the remaining ten would bring water or other supplies to the front, and provide relief if needed.
One ladder was designated 'up,' the other 'down,' and then everyone started carrying supplies up to the roof. With three trips from everybody, half of the ammunition and all the grenades were transported. Cameron was watching the advancing horde through his binoculars. Zed looked left and right, but appeared to have no interest in what was above him. Their presence had not yet been revealed. So far, so good.
Then a zombie hit the wall and stared blankly at it for a moment before looking straight up its face. Upon seeing Cameron, she began to moan and reach her arms up for him. She had no hope of climing the vertical surface, but the others took notice of her actions and joined in. Soon, the whole wave was converging on the store, wrapping around as it passed to surround the building. The derelict zombies that trailed behind the forward edge of the wave began howling and picking up their pace, leading those behind them to do the same, and so on.
Grenadiers were stationed around the roof and began lobbing Molotov cocktails as soon as Zed came within range. Dee and Seamus took three people each and stationed themselves with shotguns at the entrances, waiting to see if the zombies breached the glass windows and doors. If they did, the groups of four would take position atop the shopping carts, in the two-foot gap between the barricade and the top of the inner entranceway, and start shooting at the zombies that came in. They didn't want fire inside the building, if they could avoid it.
In just under an hour, the crowd of zombies was filling the parking lot and the surrounding streets and fields. There were still about a dozen five-gallon jugs of gasoline left, so Kevin and Cameron heaved half of those over the roof, where they smashed and spilled into the parking lot below. After each jug was tossed, a grenade was thrown down to ignite the spill. It had the desired effect. The motor oil in the grenades was throwing up a thick black smoke that made it difficult to see what was going on at ground level, but the gasoline fire was easier to see through. Cameron watched through his binoculars as zombies engulfed in flames eventually collapsed and began screaming. They had not completely burned away, but it seemed as though the fire killed off the parasite. Unfortunately, the human host could not be saved by this method, but maybe there was a way to cure the infection? If so, there might be light at the end of the tunnel yet - though it still left the questions of how the power stations had been bombed and how the two occurrences were connected.
Dee was having the same thoughts while she watched the zombies through the barricade. She also took heart at the fact that she had not been hallucinating the events while fighting Zed outside the Dojo yesterday. There had actually been a church full of people singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the zombies actually started screaming like normal humans when the parasite burned away - but there was still that song that had been running through her head. Mine eyes have seen the horrors that have risen from the tomb - where had that come from? Paradoxically, it seemed both foreign and familiar at the same time.
No matter, Dee thought as she heard glass crack and shatter. Zed was breaching their outer marker. She had work to do. The four of them climbed up the back of the barricade frame and settled in the middle row of shopping carts, plastic shopping bags full of ammo at their sides. The fires outside were illuminating the night, giving them targets while lending a surreal atmosphere to the whole event. The zip ties held fast - they had used a lot of them to secure the barricade, and it would be exceedingly difficult to move or tip the whole structure.
"Wait for them to break the glass and enter," Dee told her companions. "We don't want to do any of their work for them." For the moment, only isolated limbs were pressing through the openings, the teeming mass outside crushing those in front against the walls. But soon, the doors gave way and broke inward. The clamor of shotgun-fire rang loud against the stone construction of the building. The noise drew the attention of more zombies from outside, and soon they were clawing at the windows, trying to break through rather than idly reaching for the group on the roof.
The zombies were literally climbing on top of each other to get through the windows. At each entrance, the living were holding off Zed with their shotguns, but he kept coming and coming. As they piled up outside and inside, it became hard to see as the firelight was gradually blocked. Seamus shouted for flashlights, and soon four more people had joined each barricade, painting targets with their lights, which served both to reduce redundant shooting and increase accuracy.
The zombies just kept coming. Cameron ordered supplies to be hauled to the roof to make more grenades: motor oil, glass bottles, and shirts. Ethan was able to haul up a jug of gasoline all by himself, so he did that while the rest of the grenadiers grabbed the other supplies. Fifteen of the last thirty gallons of gasoline were designated for use to make more Molotov cocktails - Cameron set half of the grenadiers to keep assembling them after two dozen had been made, who would then rotate after they had made replacements while the previous throwers made more. In that way, they could keep bombarding Zed without running out of grenades.
With most of the attention focused on the roof and the two entranceways, the bay doors to the shipping docks and the auto garage were holding, as was the fence surrounding the garden center. Back at the storefront, bodies had piled up so high as to seal the entrances. The gunners had a few minutes of respite from the assaulting mob, but soon, the dead bodies at the top of the pile began moving again. The flashlights revealed that they were not reanimating; the trampling swarm outside was beginning to churn the pile of bodies underfoot as they clambered up the mounting dead. Runners were sent to fetch more shells, and a few minutes later the assault renewed.
Zed just kept coming. His numbers were in the tens of thousands, and the defenders just didn't have the supplies to fuel their resistance. It was three hours into the battle, and the corpses at the entranceway were piling up within arm's reach of the top row of shopping carts. The zombies were coming in steadily over the churn of dead bodies, but the view to the outside was still blocked. With no idea how many more there were, and shells running low, Dee gave the order for retreat. She told everyone to head to the roof, then went over to Seamus' barricade, where he was in the same situation.
"Seamus, let's get to the roof!"
"The fuck, Dee? Just give 'em the store?"
"No. We'll have to take it back. But we can't hold them here. They're piling up, and soon they'll just crawl in over the barricade."
Seamus grumbled in protest, but was powerless to argue. He didn't like this option, but couldn't think of a better one at the moment, so he complied. They still had some time before the zombies entered the store proper, so everyone grabbed backpacks and brought food, water, and weapons up to the roof. They made as many trips as they could, until the first zombie was spotted clambering over the barricade. Then they removed the ladders from the lifts, lowered the lifts to just within the ladder's reach, and finally hauled the ladders to the roof after everyone was up.
The hatches were shut. They were safe for the moment, but Zed was still coming. They had nothing to do but get what sleep they could, and hope that the zombies lost interest by the morning. The screams died down as the fires went out, but the moans persisted long into the night.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Rendezvous: Chapter 10
Saturday morning was beautiful, with the sole exception of the zombies in the streets. Cameron, who had minored in anthropology, was up early to keep an eye on Zed. He wanted to know as much as he could about the enemy, the better to fight him. Apparently, zombies didn't retain long-term memories, as they were milling about in the streets below rather aimlessly, with no discerinible desire to get into the Dojo. They had thinned out quite a bit, too. With his binoculars, Cameron could see that some of the charred corpses in the street were not entirely burned up - there was still plenty of muscle tissue on some of them, and their brains had probably not liquefied. If the black fungus was in fact responsible for the zombie outbreak, and functioned as some sort of parasite, then -
His reverie was interrupted as others stirred from slumber. Jack and Kevin were waking everyone up. It was probably around nine. They would want to head out soon to make the most of the day and get situated at Wal-Mart before nightfall. Sam came over to the window to join Cameron in his observations.
"See anything interesting?"
"A little. They're not bunching together. If you look out the different windows, you can see that they're spacing themselves out about half a block apart. They're staying within earshot of each other, probably so that when they detect prey and start moaning, others can join them in short order. It's actually a pretty sophisticated dispersal pattern. For zombies, that is."
"Huh. You think they know what they're doing?"
"Dunno. Could be deliberate thought processes. Could be blind instinct. Could have something to do with the parasite. But I'll give you ten to one that as soon as someone in the middle of that mess gets noticed, they'll have zombies coming from all over within an hour."
"Yeah. Jeez. Good thing we have cars, huh?"
"Yeah, if they're carpeting the city like this, we'll need to keep moving once we start, or we'll just get surrounded and overwhelmed."
Once everyone was awake, Cameron shared his observations and conjectures with the rest of the group. Then they went over the plan. The truck and the station wagon were still out front, so a load of people would jump into the wagon, with two people in the truck to clear the way if necessary. Once at The Home Depot, everyone would pile out, two to a truck, and load up on supplies. Once back to the Dojo, the rest of their food and gear would be loaded up, and they'd head out for Wal-Mart. Cameron would have a small supply of Molotov cocktails at the ready, should the need arise.
As the group headed out, the zombies started moaning and shambling after them, exactly as Cameron had predicted. None of them seemed interested in investigating the Dojo further. The drive to The Home Depot was fairly uneventful. Seamus and Kevin, leading the way in the truck, were swerving to run down the zombies in their path, which were rather thinly dispersed now that the front wave had passed.
Upon arrival at their destination, Seamus and Kevin stayed in the cab to keep watch. The trucks were lined up by the main entrance, which Dee found undisturbed, and loaded with lumber, pipes, screws, nuts, bolts, various tools, batteries of various sizes (mainly those which wouldn't be found at Wal-Mart) and a generator each. Lane and Cole were sent to raid the garden department for seeds, soil, and gardening books, to which one entire truck was devoted. As a last-minute inspiration, they also grabbed water filtration supplies from the plumbing department, hoping to purify their water without the need for distillation.
The drive back was considerably more exciting, as droves of zombies had picked up their trail in the time they had spent gathering gear. The caravan had to take several detours to avoid impassable knots of undead. Dee and Sam were at the rear, alone in the station wagon, and only had to follow - the trucks were plowing zombies out of the way whenever necessary.
"So how are you holding up, hon," Sam asked, behind the wheel.
"OK, I guess," Dee responded, smoking a cigarette.
"Well, I mean, your medication and everything. You know how long it'll be before - well -"
"I don't. And I think it's already started. But I can't be sure."
"Why not? What makes you think that?"
"I've been having dreams. Not quite nightmares. I just get the sense that some big, vast, fuckin' - thing, I don't know. Something. It's approaching. It keeps coming. And it scares the shit out of me."
"Just something huge? Could it be, I don't know, the zombies?"
"I don't know. The dreams started before the zombies, so I don't know. There's been so much stress lately, I can't make heads or tails of any of this. Everything's starting to seem familiar. Like I've been here before. It's fucked up. And the situation itself isn't helping. I keep questioning whether I'm still sane or not. I mean, when zombies are in the fucking streets, how can you tell when you've lost it?"
"You haven't lost it, love. Yeah, everything's fucked, everyone's under a ton of stress, but you're keeping it together, as far as I can tell."
"Thanks, babe. I just - it's hard, you know? I wish I could - dammit, why can't I just have a light or a gauge or something, up in the corner of my vision, that tells me whether I'm crazy or not? Like in a video game."
"Ha ha! That would be too easy. Also, magic."
"Yeah. Still. Every power station on the planet is out. From the looks of things, it's by bombing. Who would do this? And fucking how? And what the fuck zombies?"
"I know. It's fucking weird. Shit, I'm starting to think I'm going crazy, at times. But whatever. I mean, we just have to get everyone to Wal-Mart and hole up there, then wait out the bullshit until things get back to normal. Right?"
"I hope so. But - fuck, what if there is no back to normal? I mean, what if this is really it? There are probably scattered outposts around the world, I'll bet the Green Berets are having a fucking field day with this, but what if nobody makes it in the long run? What if this is just the death throes of the human race?"
"Then I guess we go out with a bang, huh? I mean, we all gotta die some day. The Sun's gonna go out eventually. It can't last forever. Right?"
"I know, it just - shit. That sounds like something I would say. When did you become the stoic one?"
"Heh. Maybe somewhere between 'zombie' and 'apocalypse.' Hey, can I bum a clove off you?"
"Sure." Dee fished the pack out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Sam, along with her Zippo.
"Thanks. Here's hoping I live long enough to die of cancer."
"Fuckin' A."
Sam lit up and took a drag, inhaling deeply. She had smoked before, both cigarettes and marijuana, but she started coughing fiercely. She almost had to pull the car over. Something foul came up from her throat, and she spit out the open window. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, it came away black.
"Oh, shit!"
"What is it?"
"Fucking - ugh! I just coughed up black shit!"
"Well, Christ, get it out!"
Sam kept hacking up black slime. The globules of sludge felt like swallowing an oyster, but backwards. Dee pulled a tissue from the glove compartment and spit into it. Clear. Strange. Finally, Sam stopped coughing.
"Gross. Tastes like shit. Blech." She kept smoking.
"Look at the road, Rosie. You can see those little black lichens everywhere. It's hard to pick 'em out from the blacktop, but we're going slow enough, you ought to be able to see 'em."
"Fuck me running, you're right. You think - Jesus, I think I just hacked that stuff out of my lungs. What the fuck is this thing?"
"I don't know. Once we get things stabilized at Wal-Mart, though, we should raid a hospital. I don't know what we can find out, but we need to figure out as much as we can. This is some heavy shit, here."
"You said it."
By the time they got back to the Dojo, there were no zombies in sight. While everyone loaded the rest of their supplies into the remaining truck space, Dee went to the smoke shop below the Dojo to grab all the cloves she could find. She went to the truck and handed a clove to Kevin.
"Smoke this."
"What? Why?"
"Rosie just had a drag and started coughing up black slime. She smoked pot on - what was it, Tuesday? Wednesday night? Look, I think the spores might be infecting our lungs, so smoke this. If you cough up black shit, then I think we'll know for sure."
"OK - whatever." Kevin lit up with Dee's Zippo and started hacking immediately after taking a drag.
"OK, keep coughing that up, get it all out. When you smoke, inhale as deep as you can. You want to kill it all and spit it out."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dee," Seamus said. "You mean this shit's in the air?"
"Looks like it. Try to get everyone to start smoking. Let's just hope that smoke keeps killing it."
Kevin's car had the back seat filled with smoking paraphernelia. By the time the group left the Dojo, there were puddles of black ooze on the sidewalk. A few people vomited. Nobody missed the irony that smoking was now saving lives. Someone pointed out that there was already black lichen growing fresh on the charred corpses in the street. It was taking root in the mortar of the buildings. There was no outrunning it - it was everywhere.
On the drive to Wal-Mart, the caravan passed the leading edge of the zombie wave. It was still about a quarter-mile East of their destination, but they'd close the distance by nightfall. Cars were still in the parking lot, though it seemed that there were fewer now, only a dozen or so. Seamus and Kevin were still in the lead, and as they pulled up, they saw a teenager sitting in a lawn chair in the entrance. Upon seeing the truck, he got to his feet and grabbed a rifle from behind where he had been sitting. Kevin got out and knocked at the door.
"Go away!"
"Look, we don't want to start any trouble. There's some major shit going down in town, though, and - well, there's about eighteen of us out here. We'd like to join you."
"We're fine. We don't need any help."
"Hey, I bet you guys are safe and sound in there. We want to be safe and sound, too. How many of you are there."
"Enough."
"Enough for what? I see about a dozen cars out here."
"We're fine. We're just gonna stay here until the power comes back on and things get back to normal."
"I don't know if you've heard, but the power station has been bombed or something. There's not going to be any 'back to normal' for a very long time. What's your situation?"
"I told you, we're fine. Just go on an' get outta here."
"Do you guys have a generator going?" At this point, Seamus got out of the truck and joined Kevin at the entrance.
"Don't need one."
"Well, are you growing food on the roof?" The boy stammered before saying that they were not. "You're probably going to want to do that, too." As Seamus got to the door, the boy raised his rifle to aim at them.
"Hey," Seamus said, "We don't want any trouble. We're looking for a safe spot."
"Well, it's not here. Now get going."
"I think we could help you out," Kevin responded. "We have a few generators, more people to help do some work, and a lot of know-how between us. Who's in charge?"
"The night manager."
"Why don't you bring him out here, and we'll talk this over?"
"Don't need to. You folks just move along."
"How long have you been here," Seamus asked.
"Since the power went out."
"Well," Seamus continued, "It sounds like you might not be aware of what's going on. We'll just wait out here, if you want to go get the boss, and we can tell you guys what the situation is." At this point, Dee joined them at the door.
"Look, we're fine, and we don't need anyone else. Now get going, or I'll have to shoot." He adjusted the rifle at his shoulder, but his posture was clumsy.
"Your safety's on," Dee said, after sizing up the boy. "Is that even loaded? Do you know how to fire it?"
"I'm not joking. If you don't leave now, I'm going to shoot."
"You don't have any ammo. Even if you shoot one of us, we'd definitely overrun you by the time you got back to the sporting goods department."
"Dee, shut up," Seamus said. "Listen, kid - no, I'm sorry, what's your name?"
"Jim."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Seamus. OK, Jim, look: the power's out all over the country. It's probably out all over the world. And, I'm not joking, there are zombies out there."
"Bullshit," Jim interrupted.
"I'm serious. They're about a quarter-mile away from us, and they'll be all over this place by nightfall. Now, if you just want to turn us away, fine, we're not going to fight you. But if we go, you'll be losing out on a lot of helping hands, as well as the supplies we've brought with us."
Jim hesitated for a few moments, then lowered his gun and said he'd be right back. Dee went to get Cameron's binoculars, and he came back to the entrance with her. Soon afterward, Jim returned with a taller man with short, black hair.
"Jim says you have information and supplies?"
"Yes," Seamus responded. "We've been in the middle of town since the blackout started. We've also done some scouting around, and from what we can tell, things aren't getting back to normal any time soon."
"What's this about zombies?"
"They're about a quarter-mile away. You can probably see them from out here, if you take a look through these binoculars."
"And how do I know you're all not just crazy?"
"Look, if things were fine, we couldn't get these trucks and all this gear. Just come take a look, OK?" The manager thought this over for a moment, then unlocked the door and came outside. He didn't want to have people he didn't know in his store, but they looked civil enough, and it sure was mighty strange for the power to be out for over a week. At this point, zombies weren't that much of a stretch.
"OK, what's this I'm lookin' at, here?" Cameron handed over his binoculars and spoke.
"Take a look at the horizon to the East. You see all those people?"
"Yeah."
"Look to the North. OK, now look to the South."
"Shit. That's - that's a Helluva lot of people." He stared out the binoculars for a good long moment. He couldn't see them clearly, not individually, but he saw that a whole lot of people were making their way in his direction.
"Yes. And they're all zombies, and they're all coming this way." The manager kept looking at the horizon. After a solid minute of silence, he spoke again.
"And you folks plan to help us out against them?"
"Absolutely. We've had to fight them off before just to get out here. We don't want any trouble. We're actually glad you're here - more people give us better odds for survival."
"Well, we haven't seen anyone since Wednesday, so - what the Hell? I don't see as how it's any worse to let you in than give you a reason to fight with us." He handed the binoculars back to Cameron. "Why don't you folks bring those trucks around back to the loading docks? We'll get you settled and introduced." He shook hands with each of them as they introduced themselves. "My name's Bill. Welcome to Wal-Mart."
His reverie was interrupted as others stirred from slumber. Jack and Kevin were waking everyone up. It was probably around nine. They would want to head out soon to make the most of the day and get situated at Wal-Mart before nightfall. Sam came over to the window to join Cameron in his observations.
"See anything interesting?"
"A little. They're not bunching together. If you look out the different windows, you can see that they're spacing themselves out about half a block apart. They're staying within earshot of each other, probably so that when they detect prey and start moaning, others can join them in short order. It's actually a pretty sophisticated dispersal pattern. For zombies, that is."
"Huh. You think they know what they're doing?"
"Dunno. Could be deliberate thought processes. Could be blind instinct. Could have something to do with the parasite. But I'll give you ten to one that as soon as someone in the middle of that mess gets noticed, they'll have zombies coming from all over within an hour."
"Yeah. Jeez. Good thing we have cars, huh?"
"Yeah, if they're carpeting the city like this, we'll need to keep moving once we start, or we'll just get surrounded and overwhelmed."
Once everyone was awake, Cameron shared his observations and conjectures with the rest of the group. Then they went over the plan. The truck and the station wagon were still out front, so a load of people would jump into the wagon, with two people in the truck to clear the way if necessary. Once at The Home Depot, everyone would pile out, two to a truck, and load up on supplies. Once back to the Dojo, the rest of their food and gear would be loaded up, and they'd head out for Wal-Mart. Cameron would have a small supply of Molotov cocktails at the ready, should the need arise.
As the group headed out, the zombies started moaning and shambling after them, exactly as Cameron had predicted. None of them seemed interested in investigating the Dojo further. The drive to The Home Depot was fairly uneventful. Seamus and Kevin, leading the way in the truck, were swerving to run down the zombies in their path, which were rather thinly dispersed now that the front wave had passed.
Upon arrival at their destination, Seamus and Kevin stayed in the cab to keep watch. The trucks were lined up by the main entrance, which Dee found undisturbed, and loaded with lumber, pipes, screws, nuts, bolts, various tools, batteries of various sizes (mainly those which wouldn't be found at Wal-Mart) and a generator each. Lane and Cole were sent to raid the garden department for seeds, soil, and gardening books, to which one entire truck was devoted. As a last-minute inspiration, they also grabbed water filtration supplies from the plumbing department, hoping to purify their water without the need for distillation.
The drive back was considerably more exciting, as droves of zombies had picked up their trail in the time they had spent gathering gear. The caravan had to take several detours to avoid impassable knots of undead. Dee and Sam were at the rear, alone in the station wagon, and only had to follow - the trucks were plowing zombies out of the way whenever necessary.
"So how are you holding up, hon," Sam asked, behind the wheel.
"OK, I guess," Dee responded, smoking a cigarette.
"Well, I mean, your medication and everything. You know how long it'll be before - well -"
"I don't. And I think it's already started. But I can't be sure."
"Why not? What makes you think that?"
"I've been having dreams. Not quite nightmares. I just get the sense that some big, vast, fuckin' - thing, I don't know. Something. It's approaching. It keeps coming. And it scares the shit out of me."
"Just something huge? Could it be, I don't know, the zombies?"
"I don't know. The dreams started before the zombies, so I don't know. There's been so much stress lately, I can't make heads or tails of any of this. Everything's starting to seem familiar. Like I've been here before. It's fucked up. And the situation itself isn't helping. I keep questioning whether I'm still sane or not. I mean, when zombies are in the fucking streets, how can you tell when you've lost it?"
"You haven't lost it, love. Yeah, everything's fucked, everyone's under a ton of stress, but you're keeping it together, as far as I can tell."
"Thanks, babe. I just - it's hard, you know? I wish I could - dammit, why can't I just have a light or a gauge or something, up in the corner of my vision, that tells me whether I'm crazy or not? Like in a video game."
"Ha ha! That would be too easy. Also, magic."
"Yeah. Still. Every power station on the planet is out. From the looks of things, it's by bombing. Who would do this? And fucking how? And what the fuck zombies?"
"I know. It's fucking weird. Shit, I'm starting to think I'm going crazy, at times. But whatever. I mean, we just have to get everyone to Wal-Mart and hole up there, then wait out the bullshit until things get back to normal. Right?"
"I hope so. But - fuck, what if there is no back to normal? I mean, what if this is really it? There are probably scattered outposts around the world, I'll bet the Green Berets are having a fucking field day with this, but what if nobody makes it in the long run? What if this is just the death throes of the human race?"
"Then I guess we go out with a bang, huh? I mean, we all gotta die some day. The Sun's gonna go out eventually. It can't last forever. Right?"
"I know, it just - shit. That sounds like something I would say. When did you become the stoic one?"
"Heh. Maybe somewhere between 'zombie' and 'apocalypse.' Hey, can I bum a clove off you?"
"Sure." Dee fished the pack out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Sam, along with her Zippo.
"Thanks. Here's hoping I live long enough to die of cancer."
"Fuckin' A."
Sam lit up and took a drag, inhaling deeply. She had smoked before, both cigarettes and marijuana, but she started coughing fiercely. She almost had to pull the car over. Something foul came up from her throat, and she spit out the open window. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, it came away black.
"Oh, shit!"
"What is it?"
"Fucking - ugh! I just coughed up black shit!"
"Well, Christ, get it out!"
Sam kept hacking up black slime. The globules of sludge felt like swallowing an oyster, but backwards. Dee pulled a tissue from the glove compartment and spit into it. Clear. Strange. Finally, Sam stopped coughing.
"Gross. Tastes like shit. Blech." She kept smoking.
"Look at the road, Rosie. You can see those little black lichens everywhere. It's hard to pick 'em out from the blacktop, but we're going slow enough, you ought to be able to see 'em."
"Fuck me running, you're right. You think - Jesus, I think I just hacked that stuff out of my lungs. What the fuck is this thing?"
"I don't know. Once we get things stabilized at Wal-Mart, though, we should raid a hospital. I don't know what we can find out, but we need to figure out as much as we can. This is some heavy shit, here."
"You said it."
By the time they got back to the Dojo, there were no zombies in sight. While everyone loaded the rest of their supplies into the remaining truck space, Dee went to the smoke shop below the Dojo to grab all the cloves she could find. She went to the truck and handed a clove to Kevin.
"Smoke this."
"What? Why?"
"Rosie just had a drag and started coughing up black slime. She smoked pot on - what was it, Tuesday? Wednesday night? Look, I think the spores might be infecting our lungs, so smoke this. If you cough up black shit, then I think we'll know for sure."
"OK - whatever." Kevin lit up with Dee's Zippo and started hacking immediately after taking a drag.
"OK, keep coughing that up, get it all out. When you smoke, inhale as deep as you can. You want to kill it all and spit it out."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dee," Seamus said. "You mean this shit's in the air?"
"Looks like it. Try to get everyone to start smoking. Let's just hope that smoke keeps killing it."
Kevin's car had the back seat filled with smoking paraphernelia. By the time the group left the Dojo, there were puddles of black ooze on the sidewalk. A few people vomited. Nobody missed the irony that smoking was now saving lives. Someone pointed out that there was already black lichen growing fresh on the charred corpses in the street. It was taking root in the mortar of the buildings. There was no outrunning it - it was everywhere.
On the drive to Wal-Mart, the caravan passed the leading edge of the zombie wave. It was still about a quarter-mile East of their destination, but they'd close the distance by nightfall. Cars were still in the parking lot, though it seemed that there were fewer now, only a dozen or so. Seamus and Kevin were still in the lead, and as they pulled up, they saw a teenager sitting in a lawn chair in the entrance. Upon seeing the truck, he got to his feet and grabbed a rifle from behind where he had been sitting. Kevin got out and knocked at the door.
"Go away!"
"Look, we don't want to start any trouble. There's some major shit going down in town, though, and - well, there's about eighteen of us out here. We'd like to join you."
"We're fine. We don't need any help."
"Hey, I bet you guys are safe and sound in there. We want to be safe and sound, too. How many of you are there."
"Enough."
"Enough for what? I see about a dozen cars out here."
"We're fine. We're just gonna stay here until the power comes back on and things get back to normal."
"I don't know if you've heard, but the power station has been bombed or something. There's not going to be any 'back to normal' for a very long time. What's your situation?"
"I told you, we're fine. Just go on an' get outta here."
"Do you guys have a generator going?" At this point, Seamus got out of the truck and joined Kevin at the entrance.
"Don't need one."
"Well, are you growing food on the roof?" The boy stammered before saying that they were not. "You're probably going to want to do that, too." As Seamus got to the door, the boy raised his rifle to aim at them.
"Hey," Seamus said, "We don't want any trouble. We're looking for a safe spot."
"Well, it's not here. Now get going."
"I think we could help you out," Kevin responded. "We have a few generators, more people to help do some work, and a lot of know-how between us. Who's in charge?"
"The night manager."
"Why don't you bring him out here, and we'll talk this over?"
"Don't need to. You folks just move along."
"How long have you been here," Seamus asked.
"Since the power went out."
"Well," Seamus continued, "It sounds like you might not be aware of what's going on. We'll just wait out here, if you want to go get the boss, and we can tell you guys what the situation is." At this point, Dee joined them at the door.
"Look, we're fine, and we don't need anyone else. Now get going, or I'll have to shoot." He adjusted the rifle at his shoulder, but his posture was clumsy.
"Your safety's on," Dee said, after sizing up the boy. "Is that even loaded? Do you know how to fire it?"
"I'm not joking. If you don't leave now, I'm going to shoot."
"You don't have any ammo. Even if you shoot one of us, we'd definitely overrun you by the time you got back to the sporting goods department."
"Dee, shut up," Seamus said. "Listen, kid - no, I'm sorry, what's your name?"
"Jim."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Seamus. OK, Jim, look: the power's out all over the country. It's probably out all over the world. And, I'm not joking, there are zombies out there."
"Bullshit," Jim interrupted.
"I'm serious. They're about a quarter-mile away from us, and they'll be all over this place by nightfall. Now, if you just want to turn us away, fine, we're not going to fight you. But if we go, you'll be losing out on a lot of helping hands, as well as the supplies we've brought with us."
Jim hesitated for a few moments, then lowered his gun and said he'd be right back. Dee went to get Cameron's binoculars, and he came back to the entrance with her. Soon afterward, Jim returned with a taller man with short, black hair.
"Jim says you have information and supplies?"
"Yes," Seamus responded. "We've been in the middle of town since the blackout started. We've also done some scouting around, and from what we can tell, things aren't getting back to normal any time soon."
"What's this about zombies?"
"They're about a quarter-mile away. You can probably see them from out here, if you take a look through these binoculars."
"And how do I know you're all not just crazy?"
"Look, if things were fine, we couldn't get these trucks and all this gear. Just come take a look, OK?" The manager thought this over for a moment, then unlocked the door and came outside. He didn't want to have people he didn't know in his store, but they looked civil enough, and it sure was mighty strange for the power to be out for over a week. At this point, zombies weren't that much of a stretch.
"OK, what's this I'm lookin' at, here?" Cameron handed over his binoculars and spoke.
"Take a look at the horizon to the East. You see all those people?"
"Yeah."
"Look to the North. OK, now look to the South."
"Shit. That's - that's a Helluva lot of people." He stared out the binoculars for a good long moment. He couldn't see them clearly, not individually, but he saw that a whole lot of people were making their way in his direction.
"Yes. And they're all zombies, and they're all coming this way." The manager kept looking at the horizon. After a solid minute of silence, he spoke again.
"And you folks plan to help us out against them?"
"Absolutely. We've had to fight them off before just to get out here. We don't want any trouble. We're actually glad you're here - more people give us better odds for survival."
"Well, we haven't seen anyone since Wednesday, so - what the Hell? I don't see as how it's any worse to let you in than give you a reason to fight with us." He handed the binoculars back to Cameron. "Why don't you folks bring those trucks around back to the loading docks? We'll get you settled and introduced." He shook hands with each of them as they introduced themselves. "My name's Bill. Welcome to Wal-Mart."
Rendezvous: Chapter 9
Once inside, Dee was laid on the couch. Everyone was informed that she was not injured, but had simply passed out after combat with the zombies had ended. Further questions were deflected until later. People started shuffling about - all the gear had been packed while Seamus and Dee were gone, and there wasn't much to do except worry about Zed.
"Well, let's be off," Cameron suggested after an uncomfortable silence. "Better to put distance between us and Zed as soon as possible."
"No," Seamus said, "I think we should take our time with this. Haste makes waste, and when human lives are at stake, we can't afford to hurry."
"Well, as long as we're comparing conventional wisdom, a stitch in time saves nine, so we should get a fucking move on." Murmurs of agreement came from the group.
"Are you kidding? There are still zombies out there. We need to take stock of the situation first, then secure an exit and make our way out slowly and steadily. We're too big a group for a quick escape to work, and our focus should be on doing things correctly and safely, rather than quickly." Others in the group muttered assent.
"No offense, but I flatly disagree," Cameron rejoined. "The one advantage we have over Zed is our speed, and we should press it. Zed's going to keep coming until we're dead or turned, and so long as we have the opportunity to put distance between the two of us, we should take it."
"I'm with Seamus on this one," Sam interjected. "We made a plan, and we should stick to it. Panicking and acting out of fear is just going to do us in."
"Correction," Kevin responded, "Dee made a plan. We decided to go along with it. Back then, I think it was a good plan, but now, I'm not so sure."
"Well," Seamus sighed, "Dee still seems to have the best idea how to handle these situations, despite the fact that she's been acting a little strange lately."
"In case you haven't noticed," Cameron interrupted, "Dee's out cold right now. The last thing we need is for the person telling us what to do to crack under the pressure, and I think this sets a pretty damning precedent."
"Goddammit, Cam, the reason Dee's out is because - except for the two or three dozen I put down - she killed every zombie out there! Of course she's fucking exhausted!"
"Except the ones who went to the church," Cameron reminded him. "And that was a significant chunk, let me tell you."
"Whatever. The point is, as Sam said, we've got a plan and I still think we should stick to it. Our main advantage over the zombies is not our speed, but that we can think, and that is the advantage we should press most: not acting as quickly as we can to flee and flee and flee, but acting as best we can and making the most of our actions. It's our planning, not our speed, that will get us through this."
"Sure, fine, but right now, I think the best action we can take is to get a fucking buffer zone. Zed's distracted by the church, so fuck the plan, I'm clearing out. Anyone else who wants to act now should come with me." Some of the others began to stir.
"Excuse me," Hank spoke up. "But I think that splitting up would be a very bad idea. We don't know what the zombies' cognitive capacities are - they may actually forget about us after they're done at the church, and move on. In that case, staying here and keeping quiet is actually the best course of action, and anyone leaving will be actively dooming those who stay behind by drawing attention back to this place and depriving us of manpower. I don't think this should be permitted. However, if the zombies are able to remember that there are people in this building, then going now is actually the best option, and any who remain behind are doomed anyway and also dooming those who go by adding to the zombie horde and depriving those who leave of manpower."
"So we're fucked if we stay here," summarized Cameron, "Just so long as somebody leaves? Fine, I'm going, and therefore everyone else should, too."
"Not quite," Hank responded. "As I said, we need to act as a group. Splitting up, whoever is right, will do harm to both sides. But right now, we don't know which course of action is the best. So I suggest we put it to a straight-up vote. With Dee unconscious, we have an odd number of people here, so we don't have to worry about breaking ties. Can everyone agree to act as the group decides we should act?" More commotion from the crowd, now. They saw strength in Hank's argument, and while they didn't want to risk being held back from their preferred course of action, the desire to stick together was even stronger. "Everyone who will agree to act as the group votes, raise your hands." In seconds, every hand was in the air. Cameron's was the last, grumbling assent as he really didn't want to go it alone. "OK, I'm going to get some paper, and we're all going to write down our votes: 'stay' or 'leave.' That way, peer-pressure won't influence it as much as hand-raising, and we get a closer approximation of what each individual wants to do."
Hank went to his backpack and took out a notebook, then handed out a sheet of paper to each person. Pens and pencils were found, then Hank collected the votes and counted them with both Seamus and Cameron watching. There were ten votes to stay, seven to leave. They would stick to the plan.
Over the next several hours, people staged gear by the exit so that it could be moved out as soon as they were ready. Seamus related his findings from the advanced scouting he and Dee had done to the group, and they came up with a plan for how to snag more gear and then get to Wal-Mart in one piece. As night fell, Dee began to stir. Sam immediately went to her side. Dee was muttering and tossing in the throes of some manner of nightmare. Sam held Dee's hand and stroked her forehead, but it did little to calm her. She noticed that Dee's abdomen was twitching regularly; placing her hand over Dee's heart, she felt it struggling to leap out of her chest. The blood rushing through her abdominal aorta was coursing so strongly, her heartbeat was visible in her belly.
Sam began gently shaking Dee's shoulder in an attempt to wake her. After a few moments of this, her eyes opened. She was startled initially, as those who were working had begun using flashlights with red cellophane to make less light. Upon recognizing Sam, they embraced.
"Oh, God, Sam - I don't know what to do."
"Why? What's the matter?"
"I'm just - I'm having these - I don't know. What time is it?"
"It's, uh, Friday evening. It got dark a few minutes ago, you were only out for an hour or two."
Dee collected herself and looked around. A small crowd had gathered to see how she was doing.
"So - what are we up to? What did I miss?"
"Well," Jack began, "Cam and Seamus started a civil war, Hank instituted democracy, and the people united and started working together for no wages. Then the benevolent dictator stepped down, and the people lived in harmony. Until you woke up, anyway."
"Dammit, Jack. Rosie, what happened?"
"Well, Cam and Seamus got into an argument over whether we should take our time leaving or make as quick an exit as possible, Hank put it to a vote, and we decided to stick to our previous plan. Now we're working to get everything ready so we can take off tomorrow morning."
"Like I said," Jack stated slowly, rolling his eyes and waving his hands.
"OK, sounds good. I'm glad to know that we can still handle internal conflicts in a civil fashion. What's the update on Zed?"
"Well," Jack said, "While you and Seamus were having your barbecue, the people in the church got all hopped up on God-smack and decided to start singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and so some of the zombies went there. You guys finished off your half, but Team God seems to have fallen through on their end. In fact, I think they've probably lost by now." So the music hadn't been entirely in her head. That was good.
"What's it look like now?"
"Umm - I don't know."
"Well, who's up in the Crow's Nest?"
"Nobody. We didn't want to make all that noise opening and closing the door, in case the zombies forgot about us."
"Well, who's keeping a lookout?"
"We've all been packing until just now. We figured we'd take stock of the situation before we left, and deal with it as it arose."
"Well, has anyone been making Molotov cocktails with the gas in the truck?"
"Shit!" Cameron winced. "I didn't even think of that! Stupid!"
Fortunately, the zombies had not turned their attention back to the Dojo after going to work on the church. Everyone took a part in bringing the gasoline and water inside, so the job was done in less than five minutes. A lookout was posted at the windows. No zombies seemed to have taken notice of their actions. Cameron found some glass bottles that hadn't been taken out to the trash, rags, and funnels, and gathered them near the center of the main room, then stood up on a chair and addressed the crowd.
"The Molotov cocktail is named after Vyacheslav Molotov, a Russian Prime Minister who bombed Finland. As an aside, yes: I am a history major. Why do you ask? Moving on: the device is simple. It works better in different conditions and with different materials, but, as they say: when life gives you lemons, burn the fuck out of zombies however you can. You take a bottle - in this case, a bottle of Miller Lite." Cameron picked up the beer bottle, and placed the funnel. "Pour in some of the fuel. Not a lot, just enough to ensure that it'll burn. Half ought to do. Now, here comes the hard part - ignition. Generally, you want to use some heavy duty matches, but in this case, we're going old school. How we do this is relatively easy, but tricky. We take these rags and rip or cut them into long strips, like a candle's wick. Then, we soak the rags in gasoline. Now, we lightly wring out the rag, so that it's not dripping fuel all over the place. Finally, you just wrap the rag around the top of the bottle, and if you can make a sort of a plug out of it, then that works even better. This is not the best method of making a Molotov cocktail, but it works, and that's about all we need right now. Then, light and throw."
The group would not make the grenades until or unless Zed turned his attention back to the Dojo, but they risked exposure once more so that Cameron could take a group up to the roof for a demonstration of the grenade's effect. Everyone was impressed, and many half-hoped that the opportunity would arise to put them to use.
After double-checking their work and determining who would take which watch duties overnight, everyone headed for bed. There was no telling what tomorrow would bring, but they would be well-rested for it.
"Well, let's be off," Cameron suggested after an uncomfortable silence. "Better to put distance between us and Zed as soon as possible."
"No," Seamus said, "I think we should take our time with this. Haste makes waste, and when human lives are at stake, we can't afford to hurry."
"Well, as long as we're comparing conventional wisdom, a stitch in time saves nine, so we should get a fucking move on." Murmurs of agreement came from the group.
"Are you kidding? There are still zombies out there. We need to take stock of the situation first, then secure an exit and make our way out slowly and steadily. We're too big a group for a quick escape to work, and our focus should be on doing things correctly and safely, rather than quickly." Others in the group muttered assent.
"No offense, but I flatly disagree," Cameron rejoined. "The one advantage we have over Zed is our speed, and we should press it. Zed's going to keep coming until we're dead or turned, and so long as we have the opportunity to put distance between the two of us, we should take it."
"I'm with Seamus on this one," Sam interjected. "We made a plan, and we should stick to it. Panicking and acting out of fear is just going to do us in."
"Correction," Kevin responded, "Dee made a plan. We decided to go along with it. Back then, I think it was a good plan, but now, I'm not so sure."
"Well," Seamus sighed, "Dee still seems to have the best idea how to handle these situations, despite the fact that she's been acting a little strange lately."
"In case you haven't noticed," Cameron interrupted, "Dee's out cold right now. The last thing we need is for the person telling us what to do to crack under the pressure, and I think this sets a pretty damning precedent."
"Goddammit, Cam, the reason Dee's out is because - except for the two or three dozen I put down - she killed every zombie out there! Of course she's fucking exhausted!"
"Except the ones who went to the church," Cameron reminded him. "And that was a significant chunk, let me tell you."
"Whatever. The point is, as Sam said, we've got a plan and I still think we should stick to it. Our main advantage over the zombies is not our speed, but that we can think, and that is the advantage we should press most: not acting as quickly as we can to flee and flee and flee, but acting as best we can and making the most of our actions. It's our planning, not our speed, that will get us through this."
"Sure, fine, but right now, I think the best action we can take is to get a fucking buffer zone. Zed's distracted by the church, so fuck the plan, I'm clearing out. Anyone else who wants to act now should come with me." Some of the others began to stir.
"Excuse me," Hank spoke up. "But I think that splitting up would be a very bad idea. We don't know what the zombies' cognitive capacities are - they may actually forget about us after they're done at the church, and move on. In that case, staying here and keeping quiet is actually the best course of action, and anyone leaving will be actively dooming those who stay behind by drawing attention back to this place and depriving us of manpower. I don't think this should be permitted. However, if the zombies are able to remember that there are people in this building, then going now is actually the best option, and any who remain behind are doomed anyway and also dooming those who go by adding to the zombie horde and depriving those who leave of manpower."
"So we're fucked if we stay here," summarized Cameron, "Just so long as somebody leaves? Fine, I'm going, and therefore everyone else should, too."
"Not quite," Hank responded. "As I said, we need to act as a group. Splitting up, whoever is right, will do harm to both sides. But right now, we don't know which course of action is the best. So I suggest we put it to a straight-up vote. With Dee unconscious, we have an odd number of people here, so we don't have to worry about breaking ties. Can everyone agree to act as the group decides we should act?" More commotion from the crowd, now. They saw strength in Hank's argument, and while they didn't want to risk being held back from their preferred course of action, the desire to stick together was even stronger. "Everyone who will agree to act as the group votes, raise your hands." In seconds, every hand was in the air. Cameron's was the last, grumbling assent as he really didn't want to go it alone. "OK, I'm going to get some paper, and we're all going to write down our votes: 'stay' or 'leave.' That way, peer-pressure won't influence it as much as hand-raising, and we get a closer approximation of what each individual wants to do."
Hank went to his backpack and took out a notebook, then handed out a sheet of paper to each person. Pens and pencils were found, then Hank collected the votes and counted them with both Seamus and Cameron watching. There were ten votes to stay, seven to leave. They would stick to the plan.
Over the next several hours, people staged gear by the exit so that it could be moved out as soon as they were ready. Seamus related his findings from the advanced scouting he and Dee had done to the group, and they came up with a plan for how to snag more gear and then get to Wal-Mart in one piece. As night fell, Dee began to stir. Sam immediately went to her side. Dee was muttering and tossing in the throes of some manner of nightmare. Sam held Dee's hand and stroked her forehead, but it did little to calm her. She noticed that Dee's abdomen was twitching regularly; placing her hand over Dee's heart, she felt it struggling to leap out of her chest. The blood rushing through her abdominal aorta was coursing so strongly, her heartbeat was visible in her belly.
Sam began gently shaking Dee's shoulder in an attempt to wake her. After a few moments of this, her eyes opened. She was startled initially, as those who were working had begun using flashlights with red cellophane to make less light. Upon recognizing Sam, they embraced.
"Oh, God, Sam - I don't know what to do."
"Why? What's the matter?"
"I'm just - I'm having these - I don't know. What time is it?"
"It's, uh, Friday evening. It got dark a few minutes ago, you were only out for an hour or two."
Dee collected herself and looked around. A small crowd had gathered to see how she was doing.
"So - what are we up to? What did I miss?"
"Well," Jack began, "Cam and Seamus started a civil war, Hank instituted democracy, and the people united and started working together for no wages. Then the benevolent dictator stepped down, and the people lived in harmony. Until you woke up, anyway."
"Dammit, Jack. Rosie, what happened?"
"Well, Cam and Seamus got into an argument over whether we should take our time leaving or make as quick an exit as possible, Hank put it to a vote, and we decided to stick to our previous plan. Now we're working to get everything ready so we can take off tomorrow morning."
"Like I said," Jack stated slowly, rolling his eyes and waving his hands.
"OK, sounds good. I'm glad to know that we can still handle internal conflicts in a civil fashion. What's the update on Zed?"
"Well," Jack said, "While you and Seamus were having your barbecue, the people in the church got all hopped up on God-smack and decided to start singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and so some of the zombies went there. You guys finished off your half, but Team God seems to have fallen through on their end. In fact, I think they've probably lost by now." So the music hadn't been entirely in her head. That was good.
"What's it look like now?"
"Umm - I don't know."
"Well, who's up in the Crow's Nest?"
"Nobody. We didn't want to make all that noise opening and closing the door, in case the zombies forgot about us."
"Well, who's keeping a lookout?"
"We've all been packing until just now. We figured we'd take stock of the situation before we left, and deal with it as it arose."
"Well, has anyone been making Molotov cocktails with the gas in the truck?"
"Shit!" Cameron winced. "I didn't even think of that! Stupid!"
Fortunately, the zombies had not turned their attention back to the Dojo after going to work on the church. Everyone took a part in bringing the gasoline and water inside, so the job was done in less than five minutes. A lookout was posted at the windows. No zombies seemed to have taken notice of their actions. Cameron found some glass bottles that hadn't been taken out to the trash, rags, and funnels, and gathered them near the center of the main room, then stood up on a chair and addressed the crowd.
"The Molotov cocktail is named after Vyacheslav Molotov, a Russian Prime Minister who bombed Finland. As an aside, yes: I am a history major. Why do you ask? Moving on: the device is simple. It works better in different conditions and with different materials, but, as they say: when life gives you lemons, burn the fuck out of zombies however you can. You take a bottle - in this case, a bottle of Miller Lite." Cameron picked up the beer bottle, and placed the funnel. "Pour in some of the fuel. Not a lot, just enough to ensure that it'll burn. Half ought to do. Now, here comes the hard part - ignition. Generally, you want to use some heavy duty matches, but in this case, we're going old school. How we do this is relatively easy, but tricky. We take these rags and rip or cut them into long strips, like a candle's wick. Then, we soak the rags in gasoline. Now, we lightly wring out the rag, so that it's not dripping fuel all over the place. Finally, you just wrap the rag around the top of the bottle, and if you can make a sort of a plug out of it, then that works even better. This is not the best method of making a Molotov cocktail, but it works, and that's about all we need right now. Then, light and throw."
The group would not make the grenades until or unless Zed turned his attention back to the Dojo, but they risked exposure once more so that Cameron could take a group up to the roof for a demonstration of the grenade's effect. Everyone was impressed, and many half-hoped that the opportunity would arise to put them to use.
After double-checking their work and determining who would take which watch duties overnight, everyone headed for bed. There was no telling what tomorrow would bring, but they would be well-rested for it.
Rendezvous: Chapter 8
Dee felt the red mist creeping in again from the edges of her vision. She had to fight the blood lust - with zombies, that could be worse than fear, since you stood a really good chance of outrunning Zed as long as he didn’t corner you. The fire was eating up the majority of them, but there were still a lot more left to deal with before the Dojo could be entered.
Her strikes were swift, efficient, and lethal. One blow for a takedown, one more to finish the job. Her left hand over one end of the pipe, her right hand in the middle of it, she held her weapon like an oar. Deflecting zombies as they lunged at her, she then drove the pipe straight down through the skull. Nothing extra. Controlled strikes were the way to conserve energy and maintain sanity. She gave ground when there were more than three within ten feet of her, so as to deny them the opportunity to surround her. No charging in like Rambo, that would get her ass killed.
Still, the red mist remained at the fringe of her eyesight, threatening to overtake her at any moment. The narrowed field of vision from her welding goggles wasn't helping, but they were a necessity; as far as she knew, a single spore of that fungus could zombify a person.
Today was Friday. She had taken her last dose of pills on Thursday. But in addition to the stress of the blackout, there was also the riot, the frat house, and the zombies to contend with, not to mention worries over how her parents were faring and whether Sam and she were growing apart. The apocalypse could end a lot of relationships, she thought, and grinned, then immediately suppressed it before she started laughing.
Her movements, though still swift and accurate, were becoming mechanical. She had heard of road hypnosis, in which the driver of a vehicle zones out while traveling down a straight, monotonous length of road at night, finally falling asleep at the wheel. Was there a slaughter hypnosis, as well? Struggling to maintain her focus, she wondered what Seamus was up to. A quick glance revealed that he was still in the truck. The fire at the center of the crowd was really roaring now, flaming zombies flailing about, collapsing, and rolling on the ground.
At some point, she began to hear music. Great, she thought. Auditory hallucinations, while not the worst, were certainly among the most frustrating, for they were distracting but not incapacitating. She had to track zombies outside her field of vision by sound, listening for the heavy, out-of-sync footfalls that preceded a lunge, judging distance from the crowd by the volume of their collective moan. The music was getting more distinct. Her eyes were completely focused on the solitary zombies breaking off from the pack. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Fallen zombies were causing others to stumble out of the way, sometimes into an incinerating lump. Hopefully, the crowd would work to her advantage here, however slight. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Her arms were beginning to tire. She had to use her legs to manipulate her center of gravity as she swung, making the blows more fluid and deadly. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. The pipe was beginning to bend out of shape. Any more than a couple degrees, and she couldn't rely on it for impact if it rotated in her hand. The zombies just kept coming. His truth is marching on.
Wait.
She knew this song. Why was The Battle Hymn of the Republic playing in her head? She lost her concentration, and her next swing very nearly didn't knock down her target. After plunging the pipe through his skull, she looked at her weapon: it wasn't quite fifteen degrees out of alignment, but it was getting there. She discarded it and drew her crowbar. Glory, glory, Hallelujah. Holding it like it was a shotgun, she used the long end as a bayonet to plunge up underneath the chins of her assailants, driving it up through the brain. The music began to sway her.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Dee was starting to lose it. As the fire spread, and the zombies began converging on her, she couldn't keep giving ground. She had progressed to the intersection Southeast of the Dojo, too deep into enemy territory, the zombies closing in around her in an arc so wide she had barely noticed it. She tried to focus, make a plan, but her mind was racing and she kept coming back to one thing: The Battle Hymn of the Republic. But now it wasn't the actual words playing in her head, she was hearing a different song.
Mine eyes have seen the horrors that have risen from the tomb
The zombies crawling from their graves as from an earthen womb
We shoot them, stab them, bash their skulls in, blow them up, ka-boom!
Yet still, Zed marches on
In her mind's eye, Dee was being backed towards a narrow precipice, the gaping maw of insanity waiting to swallow her whole. She began to question whether any of the previous week's events had been real or not. These things couldn't happen. No way. What if - what if she was just projecting some layered delusion over actual events?
I have seen him by the watch-fires of our fortified retreat
We fight bravely, but are failing underneath his trampling feet
Yet we hunger for the taste of final victory, so sweet
While Zed still marches on
Then she heard the scream. Turning to the source of the sound, she saw a charred figure on hands and knees in the crowd, head back, wailing in pain. This was no zombie moan. It was a human cry. The agonized howls erupted all around her. What had she done?
The mist thickened. A gossamer veil descended over her vision. Then she was gone.
Seamus turned the truck around. The zombies had given up pursuit of him half a block back and now seemed to be pursuing Dee almost exclusively. He had to bail her out. No rescue missions: if Dee died, he was a goner. He was far more skilled than her with a saber, but she had much broader combat experience than he did, and would be an indispensable asset to getting back into the Dojo. He parked the truck in the middle of the street, grabbed his crowbar, and got out. Cameron came in on the walkie-talkie.
"Dude, zombies towards the North have started making for the church. Apparently, they decided that now would be a good time to sing about how awesome the end of the world is."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with them on that one." Seamus couldn't quite make out the words as he approached the mob, but he recognized the melody as something familiar.
"Which, that now's a good time, or that it's awesome?"
"Umm - yes?"
"Ha ha, fair enough!"
Then the screaming started. The singing kept up, despite the zombies invading the church - wait a second. This sound was coming from much closer than that. Seamus broke into a jog, fearing for Dee. There was more than one voice, and if more people were in that crowd, Dee could have more to worry about than Zed, which was probably all she had been expecting. As Seamus approached, he hooked the zombies around the neck from behind with his crowbar, then yanked them down and stomped on their heads. He was wearing heavy work boots and wasn't worried about bone fragments breaking through - he just wanted to keep upright and finish them off as fast as possible. He didn't know how many crowbar strikes it took to fully destroy a brain, but he knew how many curb stomps it took.
After a few minutes of picking away at the crowd, Seamus heard another sound amid the screams. He noticed that the singing from the church had stopped, but a new voice had taken its place. This song was mournful and low, like a funeral dirge. It was a woman's voice, singing in a haunting legato melody.
I have heard the fright'ning stories of the writhing dead morass
As cities fall and nations crumble, so this too shall pass
But if we are not wary, we shall be dead to the last
For Zed still marches on
On the last line, Seamus recognized that this siren's song was merely The Battle Hymn of the Republic, transposed into a minor key. The smoke was beginning to darken the sky as the fire raged on. How many fucking zombies were there?
We have heard the death-knell tolling, seen the standard of the grave
They surround us like an ocean, but our walls hold back the wave
Of the dread infected masses that no mortal hand can save
And still, Zed marches on
Seamus shoved his way through the crowd until he got to the clearing around Dee, who appeared to be in some manner of trance. He was transfixed by the surreal vision before him: she, inscrutable behind her goggles, was singing as she danced with Zed, the flames roaring behind her, smoke above, corpses below. Her movements were as lithe as they were deadly, felling each zombie with a single smooth blow. She seemed almost to anticipate her attackers - no, not almost. Seamus watched as Dee plunged her crowbar behind her, directly into the forehead of an undead man in mid-lunge. There was no way she could have seen him. And through the whole thing, she kept singing, her voice strong and mournful.
In the quiet of the evening, Zed appeared in every town
With a darkness in his heart that comes from six feet underground
So long as he shall plague us, let us live to strike him down
But Zed still marches on
The crowd was beginning to thin out. It was hard for Seamus to concentrate: here was the boisterous Amazon he had once seen fall up stairs, transformed into the supernaturally graceful killing machine before him. Had he not seen it with his eyes, he could not have believed. This, he thought, is the Angel of Death who killed an entire football team. He almost felt sorry for those poor fools in the frat house; they could not possibly have known. And that voice! It was otherworldly. It took several seconds for Seamus to register the fact that zombies were pushing past him to attack her. He had stood motionless for far too long. Looking around, he realized that Zed wasn't even paying him any attention: the sole focus of the crowd seemed to be the entrancing figure at its center. Seamus kept watching. Dee kept killing.
We are fading like a flick'ring candle in the lonely dark
The future, once so bright, is now foreboding, bleak, and stark
Our salvation lies in battle, may our weapons strike their mark
Until the war is won
Dee stopped singing as the last zombie fell. Seamus was light-headed. This was fucking unreal. He watched as Dee dropped her crowbar, then staggered. He rushed to catch her.
"Dee! Are you OK?"
"I'm fine," she said, dreamily, "Just tired."
"You - you just - fuck! You killed a ton of fucking zombies!"
"Meh. Once you've seen one zombie apocalypse, you've seen 'em all."
"What the fuck are you - Jesus, are you even hurt?"
"I'm fine. I just need to rest now."
"Yeah. Yeah, let's get you to the truck." Seamus pulled one of Dee's arms around his shoulders and helped her walk back to the vehicle. Looking at her, he saw that her gloves and the sleeves of her jacket were splattered with black zombie gunk. Her shoes were almost covered in it, too; other than that, she was clean. Not a scratch on her.
Back at the truck, away from the smoldering mess, Seamus removed Dee's jacket, gloves, and shoes, taking care not to get any black stuff on him. Then he removed her glasses and bandana, and laid her across the seat of the cab. She was already asleep.
"Cameron, did you fucking see that?"
"See what?"
"Dee just - I don't know how, but she - look, could you see us?"
"No, the smoke was too thick. Zed's raping the shit out of that church, though. Morons didn't think to lock their doors."
"Well, shit. Look, is the entrance clear?"
"To the church? Hell fuck no! Why do you want to go in there?"
"Not the church, to the Dojo!"
"Oh. Hold on. Holy shit. Yeah, we're clear for entry! I'll send Kevin down to let you guys in."
"Sounds good. See you on the inside."
"Yeah, see ya."
Seamus gently pushed Dee over to one side, then got in and started the truck, and drove the few blocks to the Dojo. Motionless, mangled corpses were piled before the reinforced door.
The door opened smoothly, and Kevin came out to give Seamus a hand with Dee.
Her strikes were swift, efficient, and lethal. One blow for a takedown, one more to finish the job. Her left hand over one end of the pipe, her right hand in the middle of it, she held her weapon like an oar. Deflecting zombies as they lunged at her, she then drove the pipe straight down through the skull. Nothing extra. Controlled strikes were the way to conserve energy and maintain sanity. She gave ground when there were more than three within ten feet of her, so as to deny them the opportunity to surround her. No charging in like Rambo, that would get her ass killed.
Still, the red mist remained at the fringe of her eyesight, threatening to overtake her at any moment. The narrowed field of vision from her welding goggles wasn't helping, but they were a necessity; as far as she knew, a single spore of that fungus could zombify a person.
Today was Friday. She had taken her last dose of pills on Thursday. But in addition to the stress of the blackout, there was also the riot, the frat house, and the zombies to contend with, not to mention worries over how her parents were faring and whether Sam and she were growing apart. The apocalypse could end a lot of relationships, she thought, and grinned, then immediately suppressed it before she started laughing.
Her movements, though still swift and accurate, were becoming mechanical. She had heard of road hypnosis, in which the driver of a vehicle zones out while traveling down a straight, monotonous length of road at night, finally falling asleep at the wheel. Was there a slaughter hypnosis, as well? Struggling to maintain her focus, she wondered what Seamus was up to. A quick glance revealed that he was still in the truck. The fire at the center of the crowd was really roaring now, flaming zombies flailing about, collapsing, and rolling on the ground.
At some point, she began to hear music. Great, she thought. Auditory hallucinations, while not the worst, were certainly among the most frustrating, for they were distracting but not incapacitating. She had to track zombies outside her field of vision by sound, listening for the heavy, out-of-sync footfalls that preceded a lunge, judging distance from the crowd by the volume of their collective moan. The music was getting more distinct. Her eyes were completely focused on the solitary zombies breaking off from the pack. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Fallen zombies were causing others to stumble out of the way, sometimes into an incinerating lump. Hopefully, the crowd would work to her advantage here, however slight. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Her arms were beginning to tire. She had to use her legs to manipulate her center of gravity as she swung, making the blows more fluid and deadly. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. The pipe was beginning to bend out of shape. Any more than a couple degrees, and she couldn't rely on it for impact if it rotated in her hand. The zombies just kept coming. His truth is marching on.
Wait.
She knew this song. Why was The Battle Hymn of the Republic playing in her head? She lost her concentration, and her next swing very nearly didn't knock down her target. After plunging the pipe through his skull, she looked at her weapon: it wasn't quite fifteen degrees out of alignment, but it was getting there. She discarded it and drew her crowbar. Glory, glory, Hallelujah. Holding it like it was a shotgun, she used the long end as a bayonet to plunge up underneath the chins of her assailants, driving it up through the brain. The music began to sway her.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Dee was starting to lose it. As the fire spread, and the zombies began converging on her, she couldn't keep giving ground. She had progressed to the intersection Southeast of the Dojo, too deep into enemy territory, the zombies closing in around her in an arc so wide she had barely noticed it. She tried to focus, make a plan, but her mind was racing and she kept coming back to one thing: The Battle Hymn of the Republic. But now it wasn't the actual words playing in her head, she was hearing a different song.
Mine eyes have seen the horrors that have risen from the tomb
The zombies crawling from their graves as from an earthen womb
We shoot them, stab them, bash their skulls in, blow them up, ka-boom!
Yet still, Zed marches on
In her mind's eye, Dee was being backed towards a narrow precipice, the gaping maw of insanity waiting to swallow her whole. She began to question whether any of the previous week's events had been real or not. These things couldn't happen. No way. What if - what if she was just projecting some layered delusion over actual events?
I have seen him by the watch-fires of our fortified retreat
We fight bravely, but are failing underneath his trampling feet
Yet we hunger for the taste of final victory, so sweet
While Zed still marches on
Then she heard the scream. Turning to the source of the sound, she saw a charred figure on hands and knees in the crowd, head back, wailing in pain. This was no zombie moan. It was a human cry. The agonized howls erupted all around her. What had she done?
The mist thickened. A gossamer veil descended over her vision. Then she was gone.
Seamus turned the truck around. The zombies had given up pursuit of him half a block back and now seemed to be pursuing Dee almost exclusively. He had to bail her out. No rescue missions: if Dee died, he was a goner. He was far more skilled than her with a saber, but she had much broader combat experience than he did, and would be an indispensable asset to getting back into the Dojo. He parked the truck in the middle of the street, grabbed his crowbar, and got out. Cameron came in on the walkie-talkie.
"Dude, zombies towards the North have started making for the church. Apparently, they decided that now would be a good time to sing about how awesome the end of the world is."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with them on that one." Seamus couldn't quite make out the words as he approached the mob, but he recognized the melody as something familiar.
"Which, that now's a good time, or that it's awesome?"
"Umm - yes?"
"Ha ha, fair enough!"
Then the screaming started. The singing kept up, despite the zombies invading the church - wait a second. This sound was coming from much closer than that. Seamus broke into a jog, fearing for Dee. There was more than one voice, and if more people were in that crowd, Dee could have more to worry about than Zed, which was probably all she had been expecting. As Seamus approached, he hooked the zombies around the neck from behind with his crowbar, then yanked them down and stomped on their heads. He was wearing heavy work boots and wasn't worried about bone fragments breaking through - he just wanted to keep upright and finish them off as fast as possible. He didn't know how many crowbar strikes it took to fully destroy a brain, but he knew how many curb stomps it took.
After a few minutes of picking away at the crowd, Seamus heard another sound amid the screams. He noticed that the singing from the church had stopped, but a new voice had taken its place. This song was mournful and low, like a funeral dirge. It was a woman's voice, singing in a haunting legato melody.
I have heard the fright'ning stories of the writhing dead morass
As cities fall and nations crumble, so this too shall pass
But if we are not wary, we shall be dead to the last
For Zed still marches on
On the last line, Seamus recognized that this siren's song was merely The Battle Hymn of the Republic, transposed into a minor key. The smoke was beginning to darken the sky as the fire raged on. How many fucking zombies were there?
We have heard the death-knell tolling, seen the standard of the grave
They surround us like an ocean, but our walls hold back the wave
Of the dread infected masses that no mortal hand can save
And still, Zed marches on
Seamus shoved his way through the crowd until he got to the clearing around Dee, who appeared to be in some manner of trance. He was transfixed by the surreal vision before him: she, inscrutable behind her goggles, was singing as she danced with Zed, the flames roaring behind her, smoke above, corpses below. Her movements were as lithe as they were deadly, felling each zombie with a single smooth blow. She seemed almost to anticipate her attackers - no, not almost. Seamus watched as Dee plunged her crowbar behind her, directly into the forehead of an undead man in mid-lunge. There was no way she could have seen him. And through the whole thing, she kept singing, her voice strong and mournful.
In the quiet of the evening, Zed appeared in every town
With a darkness in his heart that comes from six feet underground
So long as he shall plague us, let us live to strike him down
But Zed still marches on
The crowd was beginning to thin out. It was hard for Seamus to concentrate: here was the boisterous Amazon he had once seen fall up stairs, transformed into the supernaturally graceful killing machine before him. Had he not seen it with his eyes, he could not have believed. This, he thought, is the Angel of Death who killed an entire football team. He almost felt sorry for those poor fools in the frat house; they could not possibly have known. And that voice! It was otherworldly. It took several seconds for Seamus to register the fact that zombies were pushing past him to attack her. He had stood motionless for far too long. Looking around, he realized that Zed wasn't even paying him any attention: the sole focus of the crowd seemed to be the entrancing figure at its center. Seamus kept watching. Dee kept killing.
We are fading like a flick'ring candle in the lonely dark
The future, once so bright, is now foreboding, bleak, and stark
Our salvation lies in battle, may our weapons strike their mark
Until the war is won
Dee stopped singing as the last zombie fell. Seamus was light-headed. This was fucking unreal. He watched as Dee dropped her crowbar, then staggered. He rushed to catch her.
"Dee! Are you OK?"
"I'm fine," she said, dreamily, "Just tired."
"You - you just - fuck! You killed a ton of fucking zombies!"
"Meh. Once you've seen one zombie apocalypse, you've seen 'em all."
"What the fuck are you - Jesus, are you even hurt?"
"I'm fine. I just need to rest now."
"Yeah. Yeah, let's get you to the truck." Seamus pulled one of Dee's arms around his shoulders and helped her walk back to the vehicle. Looking at her, he saw that her gloves and the sleeves of her jacket were splattered with black zombie gunk. Her shoes were almost covered in it, too; other than that, she was clean. Not a scratch on her.
Back at the truck, away from the smoldering mess, Seamus removed Dee's jacket, gloves, and shoes, taking care not to get any black stuff on him. Then he removed her glasses and bandana, and laid her across the seat of the cab. She was already asleep.
"Cameron, did you fucking see that?"
"See what?"
"Dee just - I don't know how, but she - look, could you see us?"
"No, the smoke was too thick. Zed's raping the shit out of that church, though. Morons didn't think to lock their doors."
"Well, shit. Look, is the entrance clear?"
"To the church? Hell fuck no! Why do you want to go in there?"
"Not the church, to the Dojo!"
"Oh. Hold on. Holy shit. Yeah, we're clear for entry! I'll send Kevin down to let you guys in."
"Sounds good. See you on the inside."
"Yeah, see ya."
Seamus gently pushed Dee over to one side, then got in and started the truck, and drove the few blocks to the Dojo. Motionless, mangled corpses were piled before the reinforced door.
The door opened smoothly, and Kevin came out to give Seamus a hand with Dee.
Rendezvous: Chapter 7
Dee drove the truck carefully down side streets to the country roads that jogged through the cornfields surrounding town. The empty containers she and Seamus had gathered were tied down in the back, inside plastic garbage bags. Seamus was looking around, peering through the binoculars every now and again.
There was no sign of Zed as they approached the power plant, but there was every sign that he had been there. It was a goddamned warzone. The power plant itself was a charred crater. Some trees in the surrounding area had been uprooted; those that hadn’t were blackened on the side facing the plant. In the street, there were severed limbs and blood-stained vehicles. There was even a headless corpse slumped against a police car, a shotgun across his lap. An overturned fire truck gave Dee the opportunity to see how the truck performed off-road.
“Holy shit.” Seamus picked his jaw up from the floor of the cab. “How many people do you think there were?”
“Enough.” Dee was stone-faced, wrestling to maintain her grip on reality. Seamus seemed to be seeing the same things she was, but she could already feel herself slipping.
“Enough for what,” Seamus asked, after a pause.
“To start a zombie apocalypse. Without power, there’s no containing this. We’re too dependent upon our tools.”
“Yeah. Well, at least the mindless hordes are now exactly that.” Seamus chuckled. “And just in time. My license to kill showed up in the mail today.”
“Watch yourself. Gallows humor is one thing, but keep it together. Once the insanity laughter starts, it never stops.”
“Yeah.” The gravity of the situation was sinking in. Under other circumstances, Seamus would have called Dee a spoilsport, but he realized that she was absolutely right. “Hey, stop the truck. Look at that. On the guy.”
“What?” Dee had pulled over and was looking through the binoculars in the direction Seamus was pointing. A decapitated body was at the side of the road several dozen yards ahead.
“That black stuff on his neck. It’s all bubbly an’ shit.”
“Yeah. Huh.” Dee took a look around. No sign of danger. “Let’s go take a look.”
After pulling up a little closer, Dee and Seamus each grabbed a crowbar and got out of the truck. As they approached the corpse, they saw the head in the roadside ditch, with the same black stuff on it. Dee was still wearing her gear from when she was testing the lone zombie earlier, so she pulled the bandana up over her face and her goggles down over her eyes.
“What the fuck,” Seamus murmured, crouched over the neck-stump. “This looks like fungus.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Do I look retarded? Of course I’m not gonna touch it.”
“Hey, what ought to go without saying usually doesn’t.” Dee stooped down next to him. Sure enough, the “bubbles” were crowded black mushrooms growing on the corpse. The severed head had the same strange organism growing on it.
Still in the clear, Dee and Seamus went to look closer at the wreckage of the power plant itself. Slow as the zombies were, they figured they’d have enough time to get back to the truck if any showed up, so long as they took frequent looks around.
The crater was filled with fungus. One desiccated corpse they found was almost completely covered by it. Growing out of the torso was a colony of bigger mushrooms with caps considerably larger than the thumb-sized ones they had seen before. The centermost one was larger than a man’s fist, and looked ready to burst. Upon closer inspection, they saw that the bloodstains radiating from the corpse had a tough-looking black moss growing over them, with black lichens growing over the farthest parts that had not yet been consumed.
“What the shitting butts, man?” Seamus stood and ran a hand through his hair, looking around for any sign of attack. Finding none, he slumped his shoulders and began to rub his eyes. “The Hell is going on around here?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.” Dee was staring closely at the plant life. To all appearances, the lichen developed first, then gave way to the moss, finally blossoming into the fungus. “That zombie, earlier today - he had some black stuff on him, too. At the time, I thought it was gangrene, but now I think it was this stuff.”
“So - I mean, it just seems really obvious that this is what’s making the zombies. Right?”
“Probably. Look, I think so, but I don’t want to miss something and jump to a hasty conclusion. Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“Yeah, that’s only a saying because usually, they are.”
“Good point. Let’s get back to the truck.”
“Yeah.”
On the way back, they each noticed that the “charred” fence segments and blackened earth were actually thickly covered with the same black lichens. It was even on the trees and in the street, though it was a bit harder to pick it out from the blacktop. Patches of moss were emerging at the centers of the lichen colonies.
Back at the truck, with still no sign of Zed, they drove to the main drag up the East side of town to scope out the other hits on their list. The mall and the Eastern hospital were both well overrun with zombies. Survivors fighting in the parking lots tried to flag them down and gave chase, but Dee gunned the engine and sped away. No rescue missions. The risk of an injured carrier - or, God forbid, a Typhoid Mary - was simply too great.
The grocery stores, including the Eastern Wal-Mart, were well-looted and had a few stray zombies each. Seamus saw through the binoculars that they were picking up a tail, but the truck - even at idling speed - was fast enough to lose them. Menards was barricaded. Good for them, or maybe not. With no food or clean water, a fortress would quickly become a tomb.
“Jesus,” Seamus said at some point. “Wasn’t all this stuff just fine yesterday?”
“There were fights at the hospitals and at the mall, according to Cam and Kevin. And even at a snail’s pace, I think the zombies would be able to cross town in twenty-four hours.”
“Still. Fuck, a week ago, I was preparing for finals. Now -“
“Don’t. The Devil’s in the details, man. This - this is the fucking apocalypse. But it’s too big to swallow all at once. It’s the little things that will get you. Keep your mind off ‘em while you’re outside.”
“Right.” Seamus swallowed hard and began taking deep, slow breaths. He was too focused on maintaining his numbness to notice the familiar ease with which Dee coached him through maintaining a state of productive shock, rather than succumb to panic.
Somehow, The Home Depot was still abandoned. The doors were locked and the lot was empty except for the four rental trucks. Dee counted her lucky stars and pulled right up to the main entrance. No movement inside. Grabbing their crowbars, she and Seamus exited the truck. Dee forced apart the doors with her crowbar, not wanting to have to deal with broken glass or a narrow exit point in case of emergency.
The first thing Dee noticed were the five-gallon barrels of water stacked in racks taller than she was. Seamus caught on in a second, not picking up on the significance right away. Dee grabbed a rolling staircase and a flatbed cart, then the two of them started loading the bed of the truck, discarding the plastic bags full of twenty-ounce bottles and one-gallon jugs. After the truck was loaded, Seamus emptied half of the containers into the sewer in order to make room for the gasoline they wished to pick up. When he asked Dee why they were doing it this way, she explained that they’d be back and didn’t want a wet floor. While Seamus was dumping water, drinking some and using some to take a quick upper-body shower, Dee went to the hardware department to grab rope. She came back with a flatbed carrying a spool of baling twine, a spool of the highest-rated nylon rope she could find, and a spool of heavy-gauge chain. She used the baling twine to tie down their load in the back, and loaded the spools into the back of the cab. After replacing the carts inside, Dee grabbed a display drill and bored a hole in the glass of each door. She threaded twine through the holes, pulled the doors shut, then tied a half-bow and made a mental note of where the loose end of the string fell along the door.
“That’s not going to keep anyone out, you know.”
“I know. Neither will the glass. That’s not the point, though; I want to know if anyone’s been here when we get back.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
Dee drove to a gas station on the far East side of town to load up, figuring that would be safest if the zombies were sweeping West. They hadn’t seen a zombie for the last three blocks as they pulled in, but Seamus stood lookout just the same, pipe in hand and crowbar in belt, binoculars around his neck. Zed knew they were around, it was now only a matter of time. Dee estimated they had enough.
It took her a while to figure out the manual pumping mechanism, but soon she was pouring gas like it was going out of style - which, in a manner of speaking, it was. She topped off the truck first, then started filling the jugs in the back. Head down, getting light-headed from the fumes as she pumped and pumped, Dee barely noticed the wet thud of a zombie tripping on a curb and falling on her face. She was approaching from the East.
“Kast! Watch our six!”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” A metallic clang rang out. “Shit! These fuckers are dodgy!” Dee looked in the direction Seamus was yelling from. He was already dealing with a fallen zombie from the North, but had apparently missed the limp-hanging head on his first swing. THUCK. “Gotcha, fucker!” Seamus adjusted his grip on the pipe and walked over to the Eastern side of the lot, then swung it like a baseball bat as the zombie got to her feet. Seamus had clocked her good, but didn't quite finish her off. Another wet packing sound punctuated the final blow to the fallen zombie. “And for the record, when we’re out in the open like this and not facing a specific direction for any significant period of time, I think 'six' ought to mean ‘South.’”
“Noted. Good work.” Dee brushed the hair away from her face and kept fueling. The webbing between her thumb and index finger was starting to dry out.
By the time Dee finished, there were zombies coming from every direction, but scattered enough to allow an easy exit. Seamus kept his right arm out the window with the pipe, not wanting to get the black zombie gunk on the rope in the back of the cab. Dee double-checked that the caps were secure on the bottles, then started the truck and took off.
They decided to scout around campus, just to see what they could find out. Every dormitory was under heavy assault; zombies were crowded around the buildings over a hundred yards deep in some places. There were some tight knots around other buildings on campus, as well. Survivors were probably inside - or had been at one point, at any rate. As before, the zombies were too slow to catch the truck, and too thickly-crowded to allow survivors the chance to try.
The West side of town was fairly deserted. There were zombies in the streets, a few homes were being invaded, but for the most part it looked as though this was the leading edge of the swarm, with the main body still on campus. The Western Wal-Mart showed no signs of activity, but there were a few cars parked outside. No zombies had been here yet, though. That was a good sign.
The bad sign came when they got within sight of the Dojo. Zombies were packed around it. The street was full of them, their collective moan and howl sounding more or less as it did in the movies. Dee and Seamus had been gone for about three hours, give or take - but the zombies had likely come from the residential areas surrounding the business district in which the Dojo was situated. If that was so, then of course the Dojo would be in the thick of things, as it was directly South of campus. Seamus radioed in.
“Hey, you guys there?”
“Fuck yes, we’re here,” Cameron answered. “Where the shit have you two been?” He was waving with both arms from the roof.
“Nice to see you too, Cam. I take it you’ve seen the street, then.”
“Goddammit! What the hell are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know quite yet. What have you been up to?”
“Sitting around and panicking. We don’t have anything high enough proof to make Molotov cocktails, it was all used to make jungle juice an’ shit at the parties.”
"OK," Dee chimed in, "Seamus, you drive around in circles. I'll get in the back and pour out some gas, then when the zombies are following us, I'll light it on fire."
"Ehh, I doubt that will kill 'em all, but it's a start. Worth a shot, anyway." He clicked the Talk button. "Here's the plan, Cam. Dee and I are gonna pour out some gas, lure the zombies over it, and then light 'em up."
"Are you assholes crazy? What if the shit in your truck explodes?"
"Liquid gasoline doesn't burn, Cam. Only the vapor does. Explosions are actually very difficult to make, you have to get the right fuel-to-air ratio and - fuck it! Just shut up and watch, this is gonna be awesome!"
Dee got into the bed of the truck and found a place to stand over one of the wheel wells, placing her mask and goggles over her face once more. Some of the zombies had already started heading in their direction, but they were a good twenty feet away yet. As Seamus got into the driver's seat, he called to Dee.
"Look, we only have about three minutes to light this trail before it will be completely evaporated and blown away at the start."
"OK, then let's be quick about this. Just ride the brake and I'll pour out a couple jugs."
"Also, they're definitely gonna be crispy, but I don't know if we'll be able to light them on fire. After melting away the flesh, the oils in the skin have to ignite, and even with their clothes on, this might not be enough fire for that."
"Whatever, let's at least try it, OK?" As Seamus turned the truck around and started steering it down the street, Dee started waving her arms in the air and shouting at the zombies. "Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you, assholes! C'mere! Fresh meat, right here! Come and get it!" Some of those who had remained focused on the Dojo now turned their attention to the truck, and as they did, more seemed to catch on to the idea that the up-high target wasn't as promising as the ground-level one.
Dee hoisted a jug up on the edge of the gate and popped the cap, then started dumping gasoline out in a wide zig-zag. Let's see, she thought, three minutes to evaporation with a truck moving at ten miles an hour plus a lit gas trail moving back at about half that speed gave her about one minute to spill all the gas she could before she started wasting it. She started a sixty-count as she watched the zombies pursue. It seemed that once they got going, they could actually move pretty fast - for zombies, anyway. They looked more like drunks with gangrene than the hungering dead, staggering after the truck. As one jug ran low, Dee popped another one and hoisted it up as she dropped the empty, keeping the fuel spilling continuously. She had just reached thirty as she started the second jug. Perfect.
When the second jug was empty, Dee hopped out of the truck, pulled down her bandana, and lit a clove.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Seamus was furious, but kept the truck moving.
"Calm down, I've always wanted to do this." Dee bent down and lit the gas trail with the cherry of her cigarette. Then she stood smoking as she watched the trail light up before her. As the flames reached the zombies, they gradually became aware of it and started moving away. The first few zombies were isolated, and had little trouble getting to one side of the six-foot-wide fire trail. But soon after them, the horde was packed and the zombies toward the center could not escape as their clothing caught on fire and they were engulfed. The inferno raged on, and soon the heat was drying out the clothing of the zombies from a good distance away, making it easier to catch on fire.
Cameron watched the spectacle in awe from the roof of the Dojo. A triangle of zombies was stretching toward the truck as Dee dumped gasoline from the back, then as she hopped out and lit the trail, the peak of the triangle began to split, as a wave upon a rock. As the fire plunged deeper into the swarm, the zombies struggled to get away from their flaming brethren, who themselves were fleeing as well from the center of the blaze. The mob was burning from the inside out. Then, over the sound of Zed's moaning, Cameron heard another sound from the North - was that singing? Oh, shit! The church!
Not one of the faithful, Cameron hadn't expected anything to be going on at the church anyway, since most of his Sunday mornings were spent in drunken slumber. He hadn't even seen the inside of a house of worship since he was a child. But he recognized the Battle Hymn of the Republic as it erupted from the church, its invisible inhabitants jubilant in their defiance while surrounded by the Shadow of Death, as it were. He thought over the previous week's events - Monday night was power-out - Tuesday night was slumber-party - Wednesday was riot day - Thursday was scouting day - today was Friday. When had all the people shown up? He had pulled Crow's Nest duty more than anyone, but never noticed more than a handful at a time trickling into the Gothic Cathedral across the street.
Cameron's reflections were interrupted as he noticed that some of the zombies, in breaking away from the fire, had started shambling toward the church. Looking to the alley behind the Dojo, he saw that those back there were also beginning to get the same idea. Surrounded though the Dojo was, it was impregnable, and it seemed that even the zombies could eventually tire of literally beating their heads against brick walls.
Looking back to the South, Cameron saw that Dee was mopping up those who had escaped the flames. He radioed Seamus.
"Dude, zombies towards the North have started making for the church. Apparently, they decided that now would be a good time to sing about how awesome the end of the world is."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with them on that one."
"Which, that now's a good time, or that it's awesome?"
"Umm - yes?"
"Ha ha, fair enough!"
Their conversation died a moment later as another sound joined the roar of the fire, the moan of the zombies, and the music from the church.
They heard human screams.
There was no sign of Zed as they approached the power plant, but there was every sign that he had been there. It was a goddamned warzone. The power plant itself was a charred crater. Some trees in the surrounding area had been uprooted; those that hadn’t were blackened on the side facing the plant. In the street, there were severed limbs and blood-stained vehicles. There was even a headless corpse slumped against a police car, a shotgun across his lap. An overturned fire truck gave Dee the opportunity to see how the truck performed off-road.
“Holy shit.” Seamus picked his jaw up from the floor of the cab. “How many people do you think there were?”
“Enough.” Dee was stone-faced, wrestling to maintain her grip on reality. Seamus seemed to be seeing the same things she was, but she could already feel herself slipping.
“Enough for what,” Seamus asked, after a pause.
“To start a zombie apocalypse. Without power, there’s no containing this. We’re too dependent upon our tools.”
“Yeah. Well, at least the mindless hordes are now exactly that.” Seamus chuckled. “And just in time. My license to kill showed up in the mail today.”
“Watch yourself. Gallows humor is one thing, but keep it together. Once the insanity laughter starts, it never stops.”
“Yeah.” The gravity of the situation was sinking in. Under other circumstances, Seamus would have called Dee a spoilsport, but he realized that she was absolutely right. “Hey, stop the truck. Look at that. On the guy.”
“What?” Dee had pulled over and was looking through the binoculars in the direction Seamus was pointing. A decapitated body was at the side of the road several dozen yards ahead.
“That black stuff on his neck. It’s all bubbly an’ shit.”
“Yeah. Huh.” Dee took a look around. No sign of danger. “Let’s go take a look.”
After pulling up a little closer, Dee and Seamus each grabbed a crowbar and got out of the truck. As they approached the corpse, they saw the head in the roadside ditch, with the same black stuff on it. Dee was still wearing her gear from when she was testing the lone zombie earlier, so she pulled the bandana up over her face and her goggles down over her eyes.
“What the fuck,” Seamus murmured, crouched over the neck-stump. “This looks like fungus.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Do I look retarded? Of course I’m not gonna touch it.”
“Hey, what ought to go without saying usually doesn’t.” Dee stooped down next to him. Sure enough, the “bubbles” were crowded black mushrooms growing on the corpse. The severed head had the same strange organism growing on it.
Still in the clear, Dee and Seamus went to look closer at the wreckage of the power plant itself. Slow as the zombies were, they figured they’d have enough time to get back to the truck if any showed up, so long as they took frequent looks around.
The crater was filled with fungus. One desiccated corpse they found was almost completely covered by it. Growing out of the torso was a colony of bigger mushrooms with caps considerably larger than the thumb-sized ones they had seen before. The centermost one was larger than a man’s fist, and looked ready to burst. Upon closer inspection, they saw that the bloodstains radiating from the corpse had a tough-looking black moss growing over them, with black lichens growing over the farthest parts that had not yet been consumed.
“What the shitting butts, man?” Seamus stood and ran a hand through his hair, looking around for any sign of attack. Finding none, he slumped his shoulders and began to rub his eyes. “The Hell is going on around here?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.” Dee was staring closely at the plant life. To all appearances, the lichen developed first, then gave way to the moss, finally blossoming into the fungus. “That zombie, earlier today - he had some black stuff on him, too. At the time, I thought it was gangrene, but now I think it was this stuff.”
“So - I mean, it just seems really obvious that this is what’s making the zombies. Right?”
“Probably. Look, I think so, but I don’t want to miss something and jump to a hasty conclusion. Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“Yeah, that’s only a saying because usually, they are.”
“Good point. Let’s get back to the truck.”
“Yeah.”
On the way back, they each noticed that the “charred” fence segments and blackened earth were actually thickly covered with the same black lichens. It was even on the trees and in the street, though it was a bit harder to pick it out from the blacktop. Patches of moss were emerging at the centers of the lichen colonies.
Back at the truck, with still no sign of Zed, they drove to the main drag up the East side of town to scope out the other hits on their list. The mall and the Eastern hospital were both well overrun with zombies. Survivors fighting in the parking lots tried to flag them down and gave chase, but Dee gunned the engine and sped away. No rescue missions. The risk of an injured carrier - or, God forbid, a Typhoid Mary - was simply too great.
The grocery stores, including the Eastern Wal-Mart, were well-looted and had a few stray zombies each. Seamus saw through the binoculars that they were picking up a tail, but the truck - even at idling speed - was fast enough to lose them. Menards was barricaded. Good for them, or maybe not. With no food or clean water, a fortress would quickly become a tomb.
“Jesus,” Seamus said at some point. “Wasn’t all this stuff just fine yesterday?”
“There were fights at the hospitals and at the mall, according to Cam and Kevin. And even at a snail’s pace, I think the zombies would be able to cross town in twenty-four hours.”
“Still. Fuck, a week ago, I was preparing for finals. Now -“
“Don’t. The Devil’s in the details, man. This - this is the fucking apocalypse. But it’s too big to swallow all at once. It’s the little things that will get you. Keep your mind off ‘em while you’re outside.”
“Right.” Seamus swallowed hard and began taking deep, slow breaths. He was too focused on maintaining his numbness to notice the familiar ease with which Dee coached him through maintaining a state of productive shock, rather than succumb to panic.
Somehow, The Home Depot was still abandoned. The doors were locked and the lot was empty except for the four rental trucks. Dee counted her lucky stars and pulled right up to the main entrance. No movement inside. Grabbing their crowbars, she and Seamus exited the truck. Dee forced apart the doors with her crowbar, not wanting to have to deal with broken glass or a narrow exit point in case of emergency.
The first thing Dee noticed were the five-gallon barrels of water stacked in racks taller than she was. Seamus caught on in a second, not picking up on the significance right away. Dee grabbed a rolling staircase and a flatbed cart, then the two of them started loading the bed of the truck, discarding the plastic bags full of twenty-ounce bottles and one-gallon jugs. After the truck was loaded, Seamus emptied half of the containers into the sewer in order to make room for the gasoline they wished to pick up. When he asked Dee why they were doing it this way, she explained that they’d be back and didn’t want a wet floor. While Seamus was dumping water, drinking some and using some to take a quick upper-body shower, Dee went to the hardware department to grab rope. She came back with a flatbed carrying a spool of baling twine, a spool of the highest-rated nylon rope she could find, and a spool of heavy-gauge chain. She used the baling twine to tie down their load in the back, and loaded the spools into the back of the cab. After replacing the carts inside, Dee grabbed a display drill and bored a hole in the glass of each door. She threaded twine through the holes, pulled the doors shut, then tied a half-bow and made a mental note of where the loose end of the string fell along the door.
“That’s not going to keep anyone out, you know.”
“I know. Neither will the glass. That’s not the point, though; I want to know if anyone’s been here when we get back.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
Dee drove to a gas station on the far East side of town to load up, figuring that would be safest if the zombies were sweeping West. They hadn’t seen a zombie for the last three blocks as they pulled in, but Seamus stood lookout just the same, pipe in hand and crowbar in belt, binoculars around his neck. Zed knew they were around, it was now only a matter of time. Dee estimated they had enough.
It took her a while to figure out the manual pumping mechanism, but soon she was pouring gas like it was going out of style - which, in a manner of speaking, it was. She topped off the truck first, then started filling the jugs in the back. Head down, getting light-headed from the fumes as she pumped and pumped, Dee barely noticed the wet thud of a zombie tripping on a curb and falling on her face. She was approaching from the East.
“Kast! Watch our six!”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” A metallic clang rang out. “Shit! These fuckers are dodgy!” Dee looked in the direction Seamus was yelling from. He was already dealing with a fallen zombie from the North, but had apparently missed the limp-hanging head on his first swing. THUCK. “Gotcha, fucker!” Seamus adjusted his grip on the pipe and walked over to the Eastern side of the lot, then swung it like a baseball bat as the zombie got to her feet. Seamus had clocked her good, but didn't quite finish her off. Another wet packing sound punctuated the final blow to the fallen zombie. “And for the record, when we’re out in the open like this and not facing a specific direction for any significant period of time, I think 'six' ought to mean ‘South.’”
“Noted. Good work.” Dee brushed the hair away from her face and kept fueling. The webbing between her thumb and index finger was starting to dry out.
By the time Dee finished, there were zombies coming from every direction, but scattered enough to allow an easy exit. Seamus kept his right arm out the window with the pipe, not wanting to get the black zombie gunk on the rope in the back of the cab. Dee double-checked that the caps were secure on the bottles, then started the truck and took off.
They decided to scout around campus, just to see what they could find out. Every dormitory was under heavy assault; zombies were crowded around the buildings over a hundred yards deep in some places. There were some tight knots around other buildings on campus, as well. Survivors were probably inside - or had been at one point, at any rate. As before, the zombies were too slow to catch the truck, and too thickly-crowded to allow survivors the chance to try.
The West side of town was fairly deserted. There were zombies in the streets, a few homes were being invaded, but for the most part it looked as though this was the leading edge of the swarm, with the main body still on campus. The Western Wal-Mart showed no signs of activity, but there were a few cars parked outside. No zombies had been here yet, though. That was a good sign.
The bad sign came when they got within sight of the Dojo. Zombies were packed around it. The street was full of them, their collective moan and howl sounding more or less as it did in the movies. Dee and Seamus had been gone for about three hours, give or take - but the zombies had likely come from the residential areas surrounding the business district in which the Dojo was situated. If that was so, then of course the Dojo would be in the thick of things, as it was directly South of campus. Seamus radioed in.
“Hey, you guys there?”
“Fuck yes, we’re here,” Cameron answered. “Where the shit have you two been?” He was waving with both arms from the roof.
“Nice to see you too, Cam. I take it you’ve seen the street, then.”
“Goddammit! What the hell are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know quite yet. What have you been up to?”
“Sitting around and panicking. We don’t have anything high enough proof to make Molotov cocktails, it was all used to make jungle juice an’ shit at the parties.”
"OK," Dee chimed in, "Seamus, you drive around in circles. I'll get in the back and pour out some gas, then when the zombies are following us, I'll light it on fire."
"Ehh, I doubt that will kill 'em all, but it's a start. Worth a shot, anyway." He clicked the Talk button. "Here's the plan, Cam. Dee and I are gonna pour out some gas, lure the zombies over it, and then light 'em up."
"Are you assholes crazy? What if the shit in your truck explodes?"
"Liquid gasoline doesn't burn, Cam. Only the vapor does. Explosions are actually very difficult to make, you have to get the right fuel-to-air ratio and - fuck it! Just shut up and watch, this is gonna be awesome!"
Dee got into the bed of the truck and found a place to stand over one of the wheel wells, placing her mask and goggles over her face once more. Some of the zombies had already started heading in their direction, but they were a good twenty feet away yet. As Seamus got into the driver's seat, he called to Dee.
"Look, we only have about three minutes to light this trail before it will be completely evaporated and blown away at the start."
"OK, then let's be quick about this. Just ride the brake and I'll pour out a couple jugs."
"Also, they're definitely gonna be crispy, but I don't know if we'll be able to light them on fire. After melting away the flesh, the oils in the skin have to ignite, and even with their clothes on, this might not be enough fire for that."
"Whatever, let's at least try it, OK?" As Seamus turned the truck around and started steering it down the street, Dee started waving her arms in the air and shouting at the zombies. "Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you, assholes! C'mere! Fresh meat, right here! Come and get it!" Some of those who had remained focused on the Dojo now turned their attention to the truck, and as they did, more seemed to catch on to the idea that the up-high target wasn't as promising as the ground-level one.
Dee hoisted a jug up on the edge of the gate and popped the cap, then started dumping gasoline out in a wide zig-zag. Let's see, she thought, three minutes to evaporation with a truck moving at ten miles an hour plus a lit gas trail moving back at about half that speed gave her about one minute to spill all the gas she could before she started wasting it. She started a sixty-count as she watched the zombies pursue. It seemed that once they got going, they could actually move pretty fast - for zombies, anyway. They looked more like drunks with gangrene than the hungering dead, staggering after the truck. As one jug ran low, Dee popped another one and hoisted it up as she dropped the empty, keeping the fuel spilling continuously. She had just reached thirty as she started the second jug. Perfect.
When the second jug was empty, Dee hopped out of the truck, pulled down her bandana, and lit a clove.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Seamus was furious, but kept the truck moving.
"Calm down, I've always wanted to do this." Dee bent down and lit the gas trail with the cherry of her cigarette. Then she stood smoking as she watched the trail light up before her. As the flames reached the zombies, they gradually became aware of it and started moving away. The first few zombies were isolated, and had little trouble getting to one side of the six-foot-wide fire trail. But soon after them, the horde was packed and the zombies toward the center could not escape as their clothing caught on fire and they were engulfed. The inferno raged on, and soon the heat was drying out the clothing of the zombies from a good distance away, making it easier to catch on fire.
Cameron watched the spectacle in awe from the roof of the Dojo. A triangle of zombies was stretching toward the truck as Dee dumped gasoline from the back, then as she hopped out and lit the trail, the peak of the triangle began to split, as a wave upon a rock. As the fire plunged deeper into the swarm, the zombies struggled to get away from their flaming brethren, who themselves were fleeing as well from the center of the blaze. The mob was burning from the inside out. Then, over the sound of Zed's moaning, Cameron heard another sound from the North - was that singing? Oh, shit! The church!
Not one of the faithful, Cameron hadn't expected anything to be going on at the church anyway, since most of his Sunday mornings were spent in drunken slumber. He hadn't even seen the inside of a house of worship since he was a child. But he recognized the Battle Hymn of the Republic as it erupted from the church, its invisible inhabitants jubilant in their defiance while surrounded by the Shadow of Death, as it were. He thought over the previous week's events - Monday night was power-out - Tuesday night was slumber-party - Wednesday was riot day - Thursday was scouting day - today was Friday. When had all the people shown up? He had pulled Crow's Nest duty more than anyone, but never noticed more than a handful at a time trickling into the Gothic Cathedral across the street.
Cameron's reflections were interrupted as he noticed that some of the zombies, in breaking away from the fire, had started shambling toward the church. Looking to the alley behind the Dojo, he saw that those back there were also beginning to get the same idea. Surrounded though the Dojo was, it was impregnable, and it seemed that even the zombies could eventually tire of literally beating their heads against brick walls.
Looking back to the South, Cameron saw that Dee was mopping up those who had escaped the flames. He radioed Seamus.
"Dude, zombies towards the North have started making for the church. Apparently, they decided that now would be a good time to sing about how awesome the end of the world is."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with them on that one."
"Which, that now's a good time, or that it's awesome?"
"Umm - yes?"
"Ha ha, fair enough!"
Their conversation died a moment later as another sound joined the roar of the fire, the moan of the zombies, and the music from the church.
They heard human screams.
Rendezvous: Chapter 6
Dee stayed up in the Crow’s Nest to take a look around while Jack went inside to inform the rest of the group. She couldn’t see any other zombies, but the one in the street was now coming straight for the building. She also took a good, long look in the direction of the power plant again; no visible activity. That was good. Hopefully, there was some kind of clue there that could help them out.
Jack came back up to the Crow’s Nest with about half a dozen others who wanted to see the zombie. They all got a good look through the binoculars. Cole muttered something about his people arriving - in their role-playing games, he had always leaned towards necromancers and other death-themed characters.
“So if it’s just the one zombie,” said Lane, “Why don’t we just kill it?”
“We will,” said Dee, “But first we want to find out a couple things about it.”
“Like what?”
“Like what kind of zombie it is.”
“Huh? It's a fucking zombie! Do they come in flavors now?”
“Cameron, if you please.” Taking a step back from the group, Cameron straightened his posture and cleared his throat. While all eyes were on him, Dee went to the chest and began loading bullets into the clip of the pistol.
“Well, folks, there are three basic zombie types. Type One is the ‘Romero’ zombie, i.e. ‘slow and stupid.’ Then there’s your ‘Revisionist’ zombie, which is faster and possessed of a primal intelligence, and sometimes not technically a zombie but the living host of a parasite. The third category is really a catch-all, miscellaneous zombies that don’t fit either main stereotype. This would include your intelligent, culture-capable, trap-setting zombies which are still slow; your philosophical zombie, which can’t be distinguished from the average Joe; and the original 'nzumbe' from the Voudoun traditions - though that last is really more of a mindless servant and less of a threat.
“At a glance, I’d say what we have down below is a Type One. Now, he may be a trapper, but we can’t tell for sure at this point. There are a number of sub-categories he could fall into, as well, which only time will tell. For instance, we don’t know how long these suckers will last - could be a few days, could be until they’re beheaded. We don’t know how long they’ll burn before they collapse, or even whether they’re afraid of fire. We also don’t know how the disease spreads - could be by bite, could be a bloodborne pathogen. God help us if it’s airborne. But until we’ve had a good, long time to observe and fight them, we won’t be able to tell for sure.”
“Which is why I’m about to go do some science,” Dee said, slamming the clip home and putting the pistol down the front of her pants. “Take notes, everyone. This is gonna be on the test.”
“You waited for just the right moment to do that, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” Dee winked and went down the ladder.
A few minutes later, she came out the front wearing a jacket and her welding goggles, a bandana tied over her nose & mouth and a bag over her shoulder. Watching the zombie for a few moments, she observed that he was still about a block away from her, had changed his trajectory on spotting her, and had slightly quickened his pace. Satisfied that she had some time, she walked out to the middle of the street and set the bag on the pavement, then removed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a three-foot length of pipe, a T-shirt, the gun, and the downstairs walkie-talkie. She radioed in to the roof.
“Breaker, breaker. This is Zombie-Swatter. Crow’s Nest, do you read me? Over.”
“I read you loud & clear, Zombie-Swatter,” Cameron responded. “Do you really think this mumbo-jumbo is necessary? Over.”
“Absolutely not, but it’s fun, so what the fuck? I’m gonna run a few tests on our friend Zed here. You just keep your eyes on him in case I miss something. Over.”
“Copy that, Swatter. Be careful.”
“Roger that, Crow’s Nest. Zombie-Swatter out.” Dee clipped the walkie-talkie to a belt loop, then picked up the pipe and walked in the zombie’s direction.
When she was about two yards away, Zed started lunging, falling over every once in a while. He got back to his feet afterward, but kept lunging at Dee. She was able to dodge his assaults with ease, leading him away from her gear. Once she was confident that this behavior pattern would not change, she readied the pipe, and the next time he went down, she smashed his hand. The zombie didn’t seem to notice. When he next fell, he couldn’t catch himself with that hand, and tumbled to his elbow. Dee smashed that, and again the zombie seemed oblivious. Even as he began lunging for her anew, he raised his ruined arm as if he expected to be able to grab her with it.
“Subject shows no response to blunt trauma,” she said, walking back to her gear. “Have not seen any other zombies in the street. What about you? Over.”
“Confirm no reaction to pipe-beating. Confirm no zombies in the street. You are clear to proceed, as far as we can tell from up here. Over.”
“Copy that. Testing response to fire next. Swatter out.” Dee wrapped the T-shirt around the end of the pipe, doused it in alcohol, and lit it on fire with her Zippo. Once again, Dee circled around the zombie to lead him away from her stuff, and began waving the torch in his face. There was no response aside from the constant lunging, so Dee backed off a few paces and laid the torch in the path between her and the zombie. He seemed to notice the torch now, and went around it, then continued lunging at Dee. She headed back to her gear again. “Fire does not deter subject, but subject will avoid fire as an obstacle en route to victim. Can you confirm? Over.”
“Confirm observations on fire. You are still clear in the street. Over.”
“Copy that. Testing effectiveness of firearms next. Swatter out.” Dee picked up the pistol. Thumbing the safety off and chambering a round, she took a few steps toward the zombie and aimed for a moment before firing into his shoulder. Zed seemed not to notice. Dee fired two rounds into the zombie’s chest, and he fell on his back. After a moment, he got back to his feet and kept coming. A shot to the thigh did not slow him in the slightest; a shot to the kneecap dropped him to one knee, but he kept coming. A viscous dark fluid was oozing from the gunshot wounds, but the zombie did not appear to suffer from the leak. After waiting a few minutes, circling in a wide arc to keep her target in the same spot, Dee aimed the pistol carefully and shot the zombie in the head. The exit wound caused his head to pitch forward, then he fell over and stopped moving.
“Subject shows no response to gunshot wounds unless bone structures are destroyed or subject is shot through the head. Can you confirm, Crow’s Nest? Over.”
“We confirm - goddamn, we confirm. Looks like we got ourselves a gin-you-wine Type One here, with a twist of environmental awareness. Over.”
“Copy that, Nest. Swatter’s coming home to roost. Over and out.” After making sure she didn’t have any zombie bits on her, Dee bagged her gear and came back inside. She left the pipe outside, on the off-chance that it had acquired some kind of magical residue that could infect the Dojo overnight.
Seamus woke up hearing gunshots. Shit. After making sure he was properly awake, he rolled out of bed into a crouch and crept to the window. In the intersection below, he saw Dee, dressed like some kind of desert bandit. She had the 9mm, and there was a man advancing upon her. Seamus watched with disbelief as she shot him in the leg, then again a few seconds later, bringing the man to his knees. Was he dreaming? Dee walked in circles around the man, whose left arm also appeared to be in pretty bad shape, and as he lunged after her time and again, despite his various injuries, Seamus remembered the zombie conversations from the previous day. So that's what a zombie looked like.
Seamus winced involuntarily as Dee shot the zombie in the head, then he got dressed and headed out to the common room of the Dojo. There was quite a commotion as Dee came up from downstairs and the rest of the group came in from the roof - everyone had heard the gunshots, and everyone wanted to know the skinny on Zed.
Cameron Davis stood up on a chair in a corner of the room and called for order. He was really in his element now: zombies were his thing. The group's fascination with zombie apocalypse scenarios had been largely his doing, renting zombie flicks for late-night parties and recommending zombie literature to others. He even owned a crowbar he had used for a Halloween costume once. All joking aside, he really was fairly well-prepared for a zombie invasion. That was why he couldn't wipe the shit-eating grin from his face as he addressed the small crowd before him.
"Everyone, listen up! We have a situation here. As you have heard, a zombie has been spotted in the street. We have not seen others yet, but if I've learned one thing from zombie movies, it's that where there's one zombie, there's a million. We were able to do a few brief tests before dispatching the one outside." At this, he tossed a gesture to Dee. "And we've discovered a few things. These are in fact the slow and stupid kind of zombie, and they are very durable. They do not fear fire as a weapon, but they will walk around it like an obstacle when in pursuit of a victim. The only confirmed way we know of dispatching them is a bullet to the head; it is therefore overwhelmingly likely that the classic methods of beheading and skull-crushing will also work.
"Right now, we need everyone to just stay calm. We need to take stock of our situation here, and figure out a plan. If you spot a zombie, do not - I repeat, DO NOT - engage it without first alerting others to the zombie's presence. Do not engage multiple zombies unless absolutely necessary. Also, no Lone-Rangering! We need to stick together, or we'll die alone. Are there any questions?"
Nobody could think of anything to ask. The situation was too overwhelming a distraction. Dee unloaded and replaced the gun, now with four bullets left, and then finished hooking up the generator and plugged in the walkie-talkies and rechargeable batteries for the power tools that had been used in the construction of the rain cache. Cameron was back up in the Crow's Nest, Kevin had returned to door duty after the group briefing, and things pretty much returned to business as usual, except for more zombie-related conversations.
Seamus found Dee sitting cross-legged on the Southeast corner of the roof, smoking. He lit up and sat down to join her.
"So where'd you learn how to fire a nine?"
"My uncle Ralph used to take me hunting up in Wisconsin. I'd shoot windows out of abandoned buildings with a BB gun that had been made to look like a real gun as a training weapon."
"You must have practiced a lot."
"Yeah. The kickback on the real thing was more than I'd expected, but the fundamentals are the same. Y'know, squeeze with your finger, not your whole hand. That kind of thing."
"Yeah." Seamus took a long drag and exhaled through his nose. "Look, I don't want to be a dick or anything, but I don't buy that story about the fight at the football frat. How'd you two get away without a scratch?"
"Oh, it was the truth. Just not the whole truth."
"Well, then what's the whole truth?"
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you."
"Fuck you. Try me."
Dee looked around behind her. They were fairly isolated, and talking quietly. Nobody would hear. She took another drag and looked Seamus straight in the eye. With deliberate pacing, she recounted the previous day's events.
"We actually got kidnapped from Walgreen's. Rosie and I were unarmed, and they had us cornered. They took us back and handcuffed us to beds in separate rooms. Then they got drunk." Dee's stare turned icy. "Then Frank raped me. So I killed him. The others didn't take too kindly to that. So I killed them, too." The look in her eyes said she was telling the truth, but Seamus was having a hard time swallowing. Dee took another drag from her clove cigarette. "Tom - the driver from the other night - he had the pistol, but one of the guys didn't like how things were going, so he double-crossed Tom and freed Rosie. Then he took off on his Harley. Rosie and I got our shit together and came back. You know the rest."
Seamus held eye contact with Dee for a few moments longer. She was unflinching, dead-serious. He found he couldn't hold her gaze, so he took another drag. "That's awful hard to believe."
"I don't care. It's the truth. Ask Rosie, if you want."
"No, I'll grant you two probably have your story straight. What I don't buy is that one girl killed a whole football team right after being raped. I mean, you're a steely bitch, but - I don't know. You really did it? I mean, wait - before you answer - look, if it's just something you don't want to talk about, just tell me, and I won't pry further. This isn't just another cover, though? You actually killed them all?"
"Yes."
Seamus stared at her for a long moment.
"Jesus fucking Christ."
Dee finished her cigarette and then went up into the Crow's Nest with a bottle of liquor. Cameron greeted her with a nod.
"Nothing yet?"
"Nope. So far, that zombie down there's the only one."
"Huh. OK, well, I think we should consider packing up and heading to Wal-Mart."
"You joking? We've got supplies here, and we're safe. The only way zombies are getting in is if they make a pile up to the top. We don't know what's going on at Wal-Mart, and it's far less secure than our setup here."
"Think about the long-term, Cam. We have a couple days of food for everyone, maybe enough to get to next Wednesday. We have no way to grow food. Sure, the zombies can't get in, but if they surround us, then we can't get out. This is a secure trap, but a trap nonetheless. Wal-Mart has a garden center and a roof to grow shit on, a sporting goods department, a stockroom full of canned goods, two main entrances that could be rather easily barricaded, and shipping doors that can be used to escape, if necessary. It's got more space, more options, more resources, and maybe even more people to help us get everything running. We need to take it before the zombies do."
"Hmm - yeah, I hadn't thought of it like that. I had kind of assumed that if the military didn't clean up in a couple days, we were dead anyway."
"The military could take weeks or months to get to us, if they even come at all. Their priorities will probably be to protect politicians and then to re-take major centers of industry and agriculture. We're pretty fuckin' low on the priority list. And all of this assumes that they don't all get killed on the way, which is also a possibility."
"Good point. Wal-Mart it is, then. Guh," he shuddered, "I never thought I'd be looking forward to spending an extended period of time there."
The two of them called Seamus up and started drawing up plans for how to move everyone and everything to the Wal-Mart on the West side of town. The first thing they decided was that today was Planning Day, and Saturday was Moving Day. They were going to need more vehicles, and the most likely source was the rental trucks at The Home Depot. In order to get those and other supplies, they would want to be prepared both for dealing with zombies and other people. Kevin's car, a low-end sports car his parents gave him at high school graduation, would be used to scout before Sam's wagon would show up with people and weapons. They had considered all piling into the truck instead, but it would be too dangerous for the people in back, and they didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket, anyway. Dee and Seamus were going to take the truck out today and do some forward scouting, as well as take a look at the power plant. Meanwhile, everyone else would help pack and stage things for removal at the Dojo. One walkie would stay inside, the other would go with the truck. They decided to rotate lookout detail with two people at a time, so that one could inform people on the inside of any developments or retrieve the next shift without a lapse in coverage. However, since the main threat now was zombies and not other people, the binoculars would go with the truck in order to get more information at a safe distance.
After hashing out the last few details, Dee and Seamus finalized their route. They would first head South, then East out of town to scope out the power plant. They'd also take all the empty containers they could find with them, to make use of any abandoned gas stations they might happen to find. After that, they'd head up the East side of town, checking out the mall, the grocery stores, Menards, Wal-Mart, and The Home Depot. Then it was over to the West side to get the situation there, and then back to the Dojo. They'd take two weapons each, in case trouble showed up. After briefing the rest of the group on what was to occur over the next couple hours, Dee and Seamus grabbed a pipe and crowbar each and made for the truck. It was about 2:30 PM.
The zombies had heard the gunshots earlier, and were all converging on the noise. At about 3:00, they came in view of the Crow's Nest. They were pouring in from all sides.
Jack came back up to the Crow’s Nest with about half a dozen others who wanted to see the zombie. They all got a good look through the binoculars. Cole muttered something about his people arriving - in their role-playing games, he had always leaned towards necromancers and other death-themed characters.
“So if it’s just the one zombie,” said Lane, “Why don’t we just kill it?”
“We will,” said Dee, “But first we want to find out a couple things about it.”
“Like what?”
“Like what kind of zombie it is.”
“Huh? It's a fucking zombie! Do they come in flavors now?”
“Cameron, if you please.” Taking a step back from the group, Cameron straightened his posture and cleared his throat. While all eyes were on him, Dee went to the chest and began loading bullets into the clip of the pistol.
“Well, folks, there are three basic zombie types. Type One is the ‘Romero’ zombie, i.e. ‘slow and stupid.’ Then there’s your ‘Revisionist’ zombie, which is faster and possessed of a primal intelligence, and sometimes not technically a zombie but the living host of a parasite. The third category is really a catch-all, miscellaneous zombies that don’t fit either main stereotype. This would include your intelligent, culture-capable, trap-setting zombies which are still slow; your philosophical zombie, which can’t be distinguished from the average Joe; and the original 'nzumbe' from the Voudoun traditions - though that last is really more of a mindless servant and less of a threat.
“At a glance, I’d say what we have down below is a Type One. Now, he may be a trapper, but we can’t tell for sure at this point. There are a number of sub-categories he could fall into, as well, which only time will tell. For instance, we don’t know how long these suckers will last - could be a few days, could be until they’re beheaded. We don’t know how long they’ll burn before they collapse, or even whether they’re afraid of fire. We also don’t know how the disease spreads - could be by bite, could be a bloodborne pathogen. God help us if it’s airborne. But until we’ve had a good, long time to observe and fight them, we won’t be able to tell for sure.”
“Which is why I’m about to go do some science,” Dee said, slamming the clip home and putting the pistol down the front of her pants. “Take notes, everyone. This is gonna be on the test.”
“You waited for just the right moment to do that, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” Dee winked and went down the ladder.
A few minutes later, she came out the front wearing a jacket and her welding goggles, a bandana tied over her nose & mouth and a bag over her shoulder. Watching the zombie for a few moments, she observed that he was still about a block away from her, had changed his trajectory on spotting her, and had slightly quickened his pace. Satisfied that she had some time, she walked out to the middle of the street and set the bag on the pavement, then removed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a three-foot length of pipe, a T-shirt, the gun, and the downstairs walkie-talkie. She radioed in to the roof.
“Breaker, breaker. This is Zombie-Swatter. Crow’s Nest, do you read me? Over.”
“I read you loud & clear, Zombie-Swatter,” Cameron responded. “Do you really think this mumbo-jumbo is necessary? Over.”
“Absolutely not, but it’s fun, so what the fuck? I’m gonna run a few tests on our friend Zed here. You just keep your eyes on him in case I miss something. Over.”
“Copy that, Swatter. Be careful.”
“Roger that, Crow’s Nest. Zombie-Swatter out.” Dee clipped the walkie-talkie to a belt loop, then picked up the pipe and walked in the zombie’s direction.
When she was about two yards away, Zed started lunging, falling over every once in a while. He got back to his feet afterward, but kept lunging at Dee. She was able to dodge his assaults with ease, leading him away from her gear. Once she was confident that this behavior pattern would not change, she readied the pipe, and the next time he went down, she smashed his hand. The zombie didn’t seem to notice. When he next fell, he couldn’t catch himself with that hand, and tumbled to his elbow. Dee smashed that, and again the zombie seemed oblivious. Even as he began lunging for her anew, he raised his ruined arm as if he expected to be able to grab her with it.
“Subject shows no response to blunt trauma,” she said, walking back to her gear. “Have not seen any other zombies in the street. What about you? Over.”
“Confirm no reaction to pipe-beating. Confirm no zombies in the street. You are clear to proceed, as far as we can tell from up here. Over.”
“Copy that. Testing response to fire next. Swatter out.” Dee wrapped the T-shirt around the end of the pipe, doused it in alcohol, and lit it on fire with her Zippo. Once again, Dee circled around the zombie to lead him away from her stuff, and began waving the torch in his face. There was no response aside from the constant lunging, so Dee backed off a few paces and laid the torch in the path between her and the zombie. He seemed to notice the torch now, and went around it, then continued lunging at Dee. She headed back to her gear again. “Fire does not deter subject, but subject will avoid fire as an obstacle en route to victim. Can you confirm? Over.”
“Confirm observations on fire. You are still clear in the street. Over.”
“Copy that. Testing effectiveness of firearms next. Swatter out.” Dee picked up the pistol. Thumbing the safety off and chambering a round, she took a few steps toward the zombie and aimed for a moment before firing into his shoulder. Zed seemed not to notice. Dee fired two rounds into the zombie’s chest, and he fell on his back. After a moment, he got back to his feet and kept coming. A shot to the thigh did not slow him in the slightest; a shot to the kneecap dropped him to one knee, but he kept coming. A viscous dark fluid was oozing from the gunshot wounds, but the zombie did not appear to suffer from the leak. After waiting a few minutes, circling in a wide arc to keep her target in the same spot, Dee aimed the pistol carefully and shot the zombie in the head. The exit wound caused his head to pitch forward, then he fell over and stopped moving.
“Subject shows no response to gunshot wounds unless bone structures are destroyed or subject is shot through the head. Can you confirm, Crow’s Nest? Over.”
“We confirm - goddamn, we confirm. Looks like we got ourselves a gin-you-wine Type One here, with a twist of environmental awareness. Over.”
“Copy that, Nest. Swatter’s coming home to roost. Over and out.” After making sure she didn’t have any zombie bits on her, Dee bagged her gear and came back inside. She left the pipe outside, on the off-chance that it had acquired some kind of magical residue that could infect the Dojo overnight.
Seamus woke up hearing gunshots. Shit. After making sure he was properly awake, he rolled out of bed into a crouch and crept to the window. In the intersection below, he saw Dee, dressed like some kind of desert bandit. She had the 9mm, and there was a man advancing upon her. Seamus watched with disbelief as she shot him in the leg, then again a few seconds later, bringing the man to his knees. Was he dreaming? Dee walked in circles around the man, whose left arm also appeared to be in pretty bad shape, and as he lunged after her time and again, despite his various injuries, Seamus remembered the zombie conversations from the previous day. So that's what a zombie looked like.
Seamus winced involuntarily as Dee shot the zombie in the head, then he got dressed and headed out to the common room of the Dojo. There was quite a commotion as Dee came up from downstairs and the rest of the group came in from the roof - everyone had heard the gunshots, and everyone wanted to know the skinny on Zed.
Cameron Davis stood up on a chair in a corner of the room and called for order. He was really in his element now: zombies were his thing. The group's fascination with zombie apocalypse scenarios had been largely his doing, renting zombie flicks for late-night parties and recommending zombie literature to others. He even owned a crowbar he had used for a Halloween costume once. All joking aside, he really was fairly well-prepared for a zombie invasion. That was why he couldn't wipe the shit-eating grin from his face as he addressed the small crowd before him.
"Everyone, listen up! We have a situation here. As you have heard, a zombie has been spotted in the street. We have not seen others yet, but if I've learned one thing from zombie movies, it's that where there's one zombie, there's a million. We were able to do a few brief tests before dispatching the one outside." At this, he tossed a gesture to Dee. "And we've discovered a few things. These are in fact the slow and stupid kind of zombie, and they are very durable. They do not fear fire as a weapon, but they will walk around it like an obstacle when in pursuit of a victim. The only confirmed way we know of dispatching them is a bullet to the head; it is therefore overwhelmingly likely that the classic methods of beheading and skull-crushing will also work.
"Right now, we need everyone to just stay calm. We need to take stock of our situation here, and figure out a plan. If you spot a zombie, do not - I repeat, DO NOT - engage it without first alerting others to the zombie's presence. Do not engage multiple zombies unless absolutely necessary. Also, no Lone-Rangering! We need to stick together, or we'll die alone. Are there any questions?"
Nobody could think of anything to ask. The situation was too overwhelming a distraction. Dee unloaded and replaced the gun, now with four bullets left, and then finished hooking up the generator and plugged in the walkie-talkies and rechargeable batteries for the power tools that had been used in the construction of the rain cache. Cameron was back up in the Crow's Nest, Kevin had returned to door duty after the group briefing, and things pretty much returned to business as usual, except for more zombie-related conversations.
Seamus found Dee sitting cross-legged on the Southeast corner of the roof, smoking. He lit up and sat down to join her.
"So where'd you learn how to fire a nine?"
"My uncle Ralph used to take me hunting up in Wisconsin. I'd shoot windows out of abandoned buildings with a BB gun that had been made to look like a real gun as a training weapon."
"You must have practiced a lot."
"Yeah. The kickback on the real thing was more than I'd expected, but the fundamentals are the same. Y'know, squeeze with your finger, not your whole hand. That kind of thing."
"Yeah." Seamus took a long drag and exhaled through his nose. "Look, I don't want to be a dick or anything, but I don't buy that story about the fight at the football frat. How'd you two get away without a scratch?"
"Oh, it was the truth. Just not the whole truth."
"Well, then what's the whole truth?"
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you."
"Fuck you. Try me."
Dee looked around behind her. They were fairly isolated, and talking quietly. Nobody would hear. She took another drag and looked Seamus straight in the eye. With deliberate pacing, she recounted the previous day's events.
"We actually got kidnapped from Walgreen's. Rosie and I were unarmed, and they had us cornered. They took us back and handcuffed us to beds in separate rooms. Then they got drunk." Dee's stare turned icy. "Then Frank raped me. So I killed him. The others didn't take too kindly to that. So I killed them, too." The look in her eyes said she was telling the truth, but Seamus was having a hard time swallowing. Dee took another drag from her clove cigarette. "Tom - the driver from the other night - he had the pistol, but one of the guys didn't like how things were going, so he double-crossed Tom and freed Rosie. Then he took off on his Harley. Rosie and I got our shit together and came back. You know the rest."
Seamus held eye contact with Dee for a few moments longer. She was unflinching, dead-serious. He found he couldn't hold her gaze, so he took another drag. "That's awful hard to believe."
"I don't care. It's the truth. Ask Rosie, if you want."
"No, I'll grant you two probably have your story straight. What I don't buy is that one girl killed a whole football team right after being raped. I mean, you're a steely bitch, but - I don't know. You really did it? I mean, wait - before you answer - look, if it's just something you don't want to talk about, just tell me, and I won't pry further. This isn't just another cover, though? You actually killed them all?"
"Yes."
Seamus stared at her for a long moment.
"Jesus fucking Christ."
Dee finished her cigarette and then went up into the Crow's Nest with a bottle of liquor. Cameron greeted her with a nod.
"Nothing yet?"
"Nope. So far, that zombie down there's the only one."
"Huh. OK, well, I think we should consider packing up and heading to Wal-Mart."
"You joking? We've got supplies here, and we're safe. The only way zombies are getting in is if they make a pile up to the top. We don't know what's going on at Wal-Mart, and it's far less secure than our setup here."
"Think about the long-term, Cam. We have a couple days of food for everyone, maybe enough to get to next Wednesday. We have no way to grow food. Sure, the zombies can't get in, but if they surround us, then we can't get out. This is a secure trap, but a trap nonetheless. Wal-Mart has a garden center and a roof to grow shit on, a sporting goods department, a stockroom full of canned goods, two main entrances that could be rather easily barricaded, and shipping doors that can be used to escape, if necessary. It's got more space, more options, more resources, and maybe even more people to help us get everything running. We need to take it before the zombies do."
"Hmm - yeah, I hadn't thought of it like that. I had kind of assumed that if the military didn't clean up in a couple days, we were dead anyway."
"The military could take weeks or months to get to us, if they even come at all. Their priorities will probably be to protect politicians and then to re-take major centers of industry and agriculture. We're pretty fuckin' low on the priority list. And all of this assumes that they don't all get killed on the way, which is also a possibility."
"Good point. Wal-Mart it is, then. Guh," he shuddered, "I never thought I'd be looking forward to spending an extended period of time there."
The two of them called Seamus up and started drawing up plans for how to move everyone and everything to the Wal-Mart on the West side of town. The first thing they decided was that today was Planning Day, and Saturday was Moving Day. They were going to need more vehicles, and the most likely source was the rental trucks at The Home Depot. In order to get those and other supplies, they would want to be prepared both for dealing with zombies and other people. Kevin's car, a low-end sports car his parents gave him at high school graduation, would be used to scout before Sam's wagon would show up with people and weapons. They had considered all piling into the truck instead, but it would be too dangerous for the people in back, and they didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket, anyway. Dee and Seamus were going to take the truck out today and do some forward scouting, as well as take a look at the power plant. Meanwhile, everyone else would help pack and stage things for removal at the Dojo. One walkie would stay inside, the other would go with the truck. They decided to rotate lookout detail with two people at a time, so that one could inform people on the inside of any developments or retrieve the next shift without a lapse in coverage. However, since the main threat now was zombies and not other people, the binoculars would go with the truck in order to get more information at a safe distance.
After hashing out the last few details, Dee and Seamus finalized their route. They would first head South, then East out of town to scope out the power plant. They'd also take all the empty containers they could find with them, to make use of any abandoned gas stations they might happen to find. After that, they'd head up the East side of town, checking out the mall, the grocery stores, Menards, Wal-Mart, and The Home Depot. Then it was over to the West side to get the situation there, and then back to the Dojo. They'd take two weapons each, in case trouble showed up. After briefing the rest of the group on what was to occur over the next couple hours, Dee and Seamus grabbed a pipe and crowbar each and made for the truck. It was about 2:30 PM.
The zombies had heard the gunshots earlier, and were all converging on the noise. At about 3:00, they came in view of the Crow's Nest. They were pouring in from all sides.
Rendezvous: Chapter 5
Dee and Sam managed to pull themselves back together. They found rubbing alcohol in the bathrooms and used that to wash the gore from Dee’s body and sterilize the bloodstains on their clothes. Dee found a clean shirt in one of the closets. Then they took Tom’s keys and pistol and went out to the truck. A good deal of the liquor was still in the back, but the pills were nowhere to be found. Dee had brought her prescription bottles in to double-check names, and those were also missing. After a good half-hour of searching, they finally gave up. There were other pharmacies, they’d just have to look. Dee drove back to Walgreen’s, smoking the whole way, while Sam familiarized herself with the pistol’s anatomy under Dee’s instruction, and then unloaded it to practice squeezing the trigger without flexing her wrist.
When they got to the station wagon, Dee realized that she hadn’t eaten all day. She spotted a pallet of energy bars and got them down with the forklift, ate three of them, and then loaded the rest of the pallet into the truck and hopped back in the cab. Sam double-checked the load on the station wagon, thanked Fortune that it was undisturbed, and got in the driver’s seat. The two drove slowly back to the Dojo.
Seamus Kast couldn’t believe his ears. He had been listening with rapt attention to the walkie-talkie for the past four hours, only interrupting to radio Jack to open the door when Kevin and Cameron returned. The town was dead quiet; the only activity he had seen all day was a few people going into the church on the next block.
He recognized the truck from the night before as it came into view, going the wrong way down the street once more. Through the binoculars, he saw Dee driving it alone, Sam’s wagon behind her, both vehicles loaded with goods. He breathed a sigh of relief and filled Jack in on the situation. After the vehicles were parked in front of the door, a group of people from upstairs helped haul in all the stuff. Food and water went to the kitchen area, shelving units were staged on the roof. Seamus kept lookout from the Crow's Nest while Kevin and Cameron stood at the ready for any interruptions to their operation. People noticed the bloodstains on the girls’ clothing, but all questions were deferred until later.
Once everyone was back inside, Dee and Sam informed the group that they got kidnapped by the football team, but they got drunk and there was a big fight and they all got killed or ran away. It was the truth, just not the whole truth. They also disclosed the fact that they now had a gun, and it was to be kept in the Crow’s Nest with the binoculars and one of the walkie-talkies. They would haul the chest up there to store those, as well as some food and water. Kevin and Cameron informed them that the West Wal-Mart had no visible activity, but there were vehicles in the parking lot; the Home Depot was deserted, but Menards and the East Wal-Mart were pretty packed. The mall was a fucking warzone, though, as were both hospitals in town. Bad news - if medical supplies were already being fought over, they could be in dire straits indeed.
Once everyone had been updated, Jack switched door duty with Cole, and went to the roof with Sam, Dee, Kevin, and Cameron. Seamus greeted them and switched the walkie-talkie back to the door frequency. After filling him in on the day’s adventures, he related his discoveries.
“Ships at sea have managed to set up a sort of ring of communication. The entire world is in blackout. East Coast has it from Europe and Africa, West Coast from Asia and Australia. Planes were having a bitch of a time landing until they prioritized by fuel level. Lots of people are saying it’s the end of the world.”
“What,” asked Sam, “Four Horsemen, dead rising from their graves, all that bullshit?”
“Actually - yes. Zombies and all.”
“Oh, can it,” Dee said with impatience. “Whatever’s going on, the real stuff is bad enough. We don’t need rumors freaking people out.”
“I’m serious,” Seamus insisted. “There’s been war, famine, pestilence, and death - riots, crop fields drying up, rampant disease, and - well, death. Oh, and zombies in the streets, too.”
“Get a fuckin' hold of yourself,” she retorted. “Any large-scale disaster, and I think this fucking qualifies, will result in riots, food shortage, and disease outbreaks as infrastructure fails, all of which adds up to, hey: MORE. DEATH.”
“OK, but fucking zombies?” Seamus wasn’t letting this go.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, maybe shell-shock victims or crazies. It’s probably all exaggerated, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “Dee’s probably right.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow at Dee. “Y’know, for someone who’s been waiting for a zombie apocalypse to happen, you don’t sound too excited about this.”
“First off,” Dee said with a sigh, “Even if I hadn’t been joking about that, just because I want something to be true doesn’t mean I’ll believe it as soon as someone suggests it. I like zombie movies because it’s an excuse to kill en masse, except they’re not 'really' people, so it’s OK. Second, wishing doesn’t make it so - my desires one way or the other won’t affect the reality of the situation.”
“Jeez, Dee.” The sarcastic tone hadn’t left Jack’s voice. “No wonder no religion would take you. You don’t know the first thing about blind faith, do you?” Dee rolled her eyes and lit a cigarette. “All I know is, if any zombies show up, I’m grabbing that gun and shooting myself in the face as soon as possible. I don’t want to be zombie food.”
“Better one in the head than the living dead,” Cameron added with a nod.
“Say, Cam,” Kevin said, pulling at his goatee. “Earlier, at the mall and the hospitals. You think -?” Cameron scratched his head for a moment and shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine, man. Those would be the first places for a zombie outbreak, though, if I had to pick.”
“You guys are serious,” Sam asked, echoing Dee’s thoughts. “You’re actually taking this seriously?”
“What do you think is more fucking likely?” Seamus was raising his voice. “That everyone, coast to fucking coast, is exaggerating zombie reports to scare one another, or that there’s actually some fucking truth to this? Don’t forget that the entire world is without a functioning power plant. I don’t think zombies are that big of a jump on the impossibility scale.”
“No, you’re right,” Dee said, exhaling smoke. “The last couple days have been really fucking rough. If these outbreak stories are everywhere, then there’s probably something to ‘em. Besides, there are already documented parasites that induce zombie-like behavior in their hosts - the sacculina parasite, the rabies virus, that jungle fungus that infects the ants. Fucked up as it is -“ she paused to take another drag. “I dunno. It could happen. But I’m still gonna have to see a zombie before I believe it.” At the back of her mind, she thought that if there was indeed a zombie outbreak, at least everyone would have something to keep them occupied.
The sun was still up, so Dee set about building a rain cache with the help of Seamus and Ethan. They welded shelves together in a wide V shape to catch as much rain as possible, with the holes at the front of the shelves at the bottom of the V. Below the holes, they placed rain gutters from around the roof, which fed into the neighbors’ bathtub which they’d hauled out for the purpose. Everything was bolted to a wooden frame they rigged up on the spot.
As the sun went down, they started drawing up schematics for the distillery, which was tomorrow’s project. Coming up with something that would work was no problem, the challenge was to design something they could actually build. The main headaches they were running into were the matters of cooling the steam quickly enough, and removing the distillate receptacle for continuous operation, should the opportunity of heavy rainfall arise. With sub-optimal equipment and the inability to machine custom parts, it was a more complex task than they had foreseen.
Another party erupted on the roof. Hank and Mary shared the last of their marijuana with anyone who cared to partake, and alcohol was still plentiful. There was a bit of nervous tension, since everyone had been informed of the worldwide blackout and the zombie rumors, but the overall tone was one of apocalyptic revelry. If this was indeed the end of the world, none of the college students wanted to miss out on what might be their last chance to party hearty. Nobody was formally given lookout or door duty, but various individuals volunteered throughout the night, so there wasn’t a lapse in security. After Kevin discovered two other people having sex in his bed, improvised “Vacant/Occupied” signs were taped to the doors of every bedroom. Normally, he would have been upset over this, but his sense of hospitality told him that selfishness in this situation just wouldn’t help anything.
Tom Morrigan was staring out a window on the second-floor of his house, holding a shot of tequila in his right hand. The left one ran through his hair, and came to rest at the back of his head, where he firmly massaged the stiff muscles at the top of his neck. Linda was sprawled on an enormous bean bag, staring at the ceiling, a half-empty beer bottle within arm’s reach. Tom’s left hand fell to his side, and he did a few neck rolls, then picked up a wedge of lime.
“Well,” he said, contemplating his shot, “Here’s to cosmic fuck-ups and missed chances,” then downed the tequila and bit into the lime.
“You said it.” Linda reached for her bottle and took a long pull at it as she got to her feet and joined her husband at the window. He put his arm around her shoulder, she placed hers around his waist.
In the street below, people were literally tearing each other apart. Shambling figures, oblivious to the shovels and bats of their attackers, latched onto screaming victims with claw-like hands and ragged teeth. Tom emptied the last of the tequila into his shot glass and downed it, then went downstairs to perform a few last checks. He had locked and barricaded every door, boarded up every window, and turned off the generator. He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and then went back upstairs to join his wife, who had crawled into bed.
“You ready,” he asked as he settled in next to her.
“As I’ll ever be.” They embraced and kissed. Tom’s steady hand placed the note on the nightstand and returned with a bottle of sleeping pills.
Dee dreamed of zombies, rooftop shootouts, and long rides through barren countryside. The immensity on the horizon was closing in all around her, suffocating yet still out of sight. She couldn't outrun it, she couldn't fight it. She could feel the world closing in. Her tossing and turning woke Sam at several points throughout the night.
Friday morning arrived with hangovers for some, but renewed determination for most. Jack, the first to wake, went up to the Crow's Nest to take lookout. Kevin was up next, spotted Jack on duty, then made a note on the whiteboard that Jack was on lookout and he was taking door duty. He grabbed a book and headed downstairs.
Others woke up in various states, Dee somewhere in the middle. She had a brief moment of panic when she couldn't find her pills, then remembered the previous day's events and calmed down. This is OK, she told herself, I can handle this. She reasoned that as long as she made every attempt to keep a firm grip on reality, she ought to be able to keep it together. She then got a bottle of water and located the distillery schematics from last night. On a fresh sheet of paper, she attempted to draw up a new one, incorporating the best workable elements from each while trying to figure out how to solve the previous night's difficulties.
At some point, Dee realized that the generator hadn't been hooked up. The walkie-talkies had been charged on - what, Tuesday? Today was Friday morning, and - oh, Christ, how she needed a shower - but the walkies had been in almost continuous use. Even if the boys had rotated them based on battery level, they'd be close to empty now. She stepped out back with the charging dock, lighting a cigarette as she went to the roof, and worked on getting the generator running.
Jack August was sitting cross-legged in the Crow's Nest. He was looking through Cameron's binoculars with one eye, pretending he was a pirate in a real crow's nest surveying the horizon with a spyglass. There were no cars in the street, no planes in the air, no people on the sidewalks, and he had to come up with some way to keep his mind occupied.
Kevin radioed in to let Jack know that he was taking door duty. Jack responded, "Copy that," now feeling like a commando in some high-stakes military operation. Playing through the fantasy in his mind, he barely noticed as the back door opened and sounds of tinkering began on the main part of the roof below him.
Jack lowered the binoculars, leaned back, and stretched out his arms as he yawned. Looking around with both eyes now, he took in the sight of the ghost town below him. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he saw the silhouette of a single person in the morning light, a couple blocks North. Raising the binoculars to his eyes once more, he took a closer look.
It was a man. He walked haltingly, his head hanging limp from his shoulders, only occasionally raising it to look at the road ahead. He had bits of black stuff on his exposed skin. The shambling posture, the aimless wander, the empty expression - there was no doubt about it: this was a zombie.
Lowering the binoculars, Jack shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet. Walking to the chest, he opened it and retrieved the 9mm pistol that had been stashed there the night before. Setting the body of the weapon on the roof, he grabbed the clip and pushed a bullet into it. After sliding the clip up through the grip, he pulled the slide back, as he'd seen done in movies. Pressing the muzzle against the fleshy area between his chin and his throat, Jack closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Damn, that fucker was hard to pull.
Jack squeezed harder. Even with both fingers, he was unable to fire the pistol.
Shit, he thought, I forgot to take the stupid safety off. Searching the device, he eventually found the lever that would allow him to escape the coming zombie hordes.
Wait a minute. Most of the zombie apocalypse scenarios Jack had envisioned involved him either being alone in his apartment with throngs of the living dead beating down his door, or being among the first to turn. Barricaded in the Dojo, with days of food and water and a distillery in the works, he was in much better shape than he had imagined he ever would be. Jack found the button to release the clip, pulled the slide back again to eject the round in the chamber, and placed the whole mess back in the chest. Walking to the edge of the Crow's Nest, he spotted Dee working at the generator.
"Hey, Dee!"
"Yeah-huh?" Or did she say, Yeah, hon? It was one of her eccentricities that Jack had never been able to figure out. The first opportunity of his new lease on life did not escape him.
"Did you say, 'Yeah - huh,' or, 'Yeah, hon?'"
"Err - well, I actually mean 'Yeah - huh,' but I try to make it sound ambiguous."
"Oh. OK. Well, you should come up here and take a look at this."
Dee set her tools down, casually stood, brushed off her knees and the seat of her pants, and then walked over to the ladder and climbed up to join Jack.
"What's up?"
"Well, I was looking around, and - I think that's a zombie." Dee took the binoculars and peered through them for a long moment. Her curiosity satisfied, she handed them back to Jack.
"Yep, I'd say so. Goddamn."
"So what's the plan, then?"
"Well." Dee paused to think a moment. "We'll only get surrounded here. We need more exit points. I think the thing to do is to head to Wal-Mart."
"OK. I'll go tell the others."
"Hey, what ever happened to shooting yourself in the head?"
"Oh, that. Well, I tried, but I forgot to take the safety off. Then I realized that I'm much better off than I thought I'd be, so I decided to see how this goes."
"Oh. Good." Dee nodded thoughtfully, almost indifferently. Jack was slightly disappointed. He knew that Dee was a lesbian, but still, he had kinda hoped that she would be more upset at the prospect of his death - for some reason or another. No, Jack realized, he just hoped that she was attracted to him.
He had always wondered what it would be like to fuck a lesbian.
When they got to the station wagon, Dee realized that she hadn’t eaten all day. She spotted a pallet of energy bars and got them down with the forklift, ate three of them, and then loaded the rest of the pallet into the truck and hopped back in the cab. Sam double-checked the load on the station wagon, thanked Fortune that it was undisturbed, and got in the driver’s seat. The two drove slowly back to the Dojo.
Seamus Kast couldn’t believe his ears. He had been listening with rapt attention to the walkie-talkie for the past four hours, only interrupting to radio Jack to open the door when Kevin and Cameron returned. The town was dead quiet; the only activity he had seen all day was a few people going into the church on the next block.
He recognized the truck from the night before as it came into view, going the wrong way down the street once more. Through the binoculars, he saw Dee driving it alone, Sam’s wagon behind her, both vehicles loaded with goods. He breathed a sigh of relief and filled Jack in on the situation. After the vehicles were parked in front of the door, a group of people from upstairs helped haul in all the stuff. Food and water went to the kitchen area, shelving units were staged on the roof. Seamus kept lookout from the Crow's Nest while Kevin and Cameron stood at the ready for any interruptions to their operation. People noticed the bloodstains on the girls’ clothing, but all questions were deferred until later.
Once everyone was back inside, Dee and Sam informed the group that they got kidnapped by the football team, but they got drunk and there was a big fight and they all got killed or ran away. It was the truth, just not the whole truth. They also disclosed the fact that they now had a gun, and it was to be kept in the Crow’s Nest with the binoculars and one of the walkie-talkies. They would haul the chest up there to store those, as well as some food and water. Kevin and Cameron informed them that the West Wal-Mart had no visible activity, but there were vehicles in the parking lot; the Home Depot was deserted, but Menards and the East Wal-Mart were pretty packed. The mall was a fucking warzone, though, as were both hospitals in town. Bad news - if medical supplies were already being fought over, they could be in dire straits indeed.
Once everyone had been updated, Jack switched door duty with Cole, and went to the roof with Sam, Dee, Kevin, and Cameron. Seamus greeted them and switched the walkie-talkie back to the door frequency. After filling him in on the day’s adventures, he related his discoveries.
“Ships at sea have managed to set up a sort of ring of communication. The entire world is in blackout. East Coast has it from Europe and Africa, West Coast from Asia and Australia. Planes were having a bitch of a time landing until they prioritized by fuel level. Lots of people are saying it’s the end of the world.”
“What,” asked Sam, “Four Horsemen, dead rising from their graves, all that bullshit?”
“Actually - yes. Zombies and all.”
“Oh, can it,” Dee said with impatience. “Whatever’s going on, the real stuff is bad enough. We don’t need rumors freaking people out.”
“I’m serious,” Seamus insisted. “There’s been war, famine, pestilence, and death - riots, crop fields drying up, rampant disease, and - well, death. Oh, and zombies in the streets, too.”
“Get a fuckin' hold of yourself,” she retorted. “Any large-scale disaster, and I think this fucking qualifies, will result in riots, food shortage, and disease outbreaks as infrastructure fails, all of which adds up to, hey: MORE. DEATH.”
“OK, but fucking zombies?” Seamus wasn’t letting this go.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, maybe shell-shock victims or crazies. It’s probably all exaggerated, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “Dee’s probably right.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow at Dee. “Y’know, for someone who’s been waiting for a zombie apocalypse to happen, you don’t sound too excited about this.”
“First off,” Dee said with a sigh, “Even if I hadn’t been joking about that, just because I want something to be true doesn’t mean I’ll believe it as soon as someone suggests it. I like zombie movies because it’s an excuse to kill en masse, except they’re not 'really' people, so it’s OK. Second, wishing doesn’t make it so - my desires one way or the other won’t affect the reality of the situation.”
“Jeez, Dee.” The sarcastic tone hadn’t left Jack’s voice. “No wonder no religion would take you. You don’t know the first thing about blind faith, do you?” Dee rolled her eyes and lit a cigarette. “All I know is, if any zombies show up, I’m grabbing that gun and shooting myself in the face as soon as possible. I don’t want to be zombie food.”
“Better one in the head than the living dead,” Cameron added with a nod.
“Say, Cam,” Kevin said, pulling at his goatee. “Earlier, at the mall and the hospitals. You think -?” Cameron scratched his head for a moment and shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine, man. Those would be the first places for a zombie outbreak, though, if I had to pick.”
“You guys are serious,” Sam asked, echoing Dee’s thoughts. “You’re actually taking this seriously?”
“What do you think is more fucking likely?” Seamus was raising his voice. “That everyone, coast to fucking coast, is exaggerating zombie reports to scare one another, or that there’s actually some fucking truth to this? Don’t forget that the entire world is without a functioning power plant. I don’t think zombies are that big of a jump on the impossibility scale.”
“No, you’re right,” Dee said, exhaling smoke. “The last couple days have been really fucking rough. If these outbreak stories are everywhere, then there’s probably something to ‘em. Besides, there are already documented parasites that induce zombie-like behavior in their hosts - the sacculina parasite, the rabies virus, that jungle fungus that infects the ants. Fucked up as it is -“ she paused to take another drag. “I dunno. It could happen. But I’m still gonna have to see a zombie before I believe it.” At the back of her mind, she thought that if there was indeed a zombie outbreak, at least everyone would have something to keep them occupied.
The sun was still up, so Dee set about building a rain cache with the help of Seamus and Ethan. They welded shelves together in a wide V shape to catch as much rain as possible, with the holes at the front of the shelves at the bottom of the V. Below the holes, they placed rain gutters from around the roof, which fed into the neighbors’ bathtub which they’d hauled out for the purpose. Everything was bolted to a wooden frame they rigged up on the spot.
As the sun went down, they started drawing up schematics for the distillery, which was tomorrow’s project. Coming up with something that would work was no problem, the challenge was to design something they could actually build. The main headaches they were running into were the matters of cooling the steam quickly enough, and removing the distillate receptacle for continuous operation, should the opportunity of heavy rainfall arise. With sub-optimal equipment and the inability to machine custom parts, it was a more complex task than they had foreseen.
Another party erupted on the roof. Hank and Mary shared the last of their marijuana with anyone who cared to partake, and alcohol was still plentiful. There was a bit of nervous tension, since everyone had been informed of the worldwide blackout and the zombie rumors, but the overall tone was one of apocalyptic revelry. If this was indeed the end of the world, none of the college students wanted to miss out on what might be their last chance to party hearty. Nobody was formally given lookout or door duty, but various individuals volunteered throughout the night, so there wasn’t a lapse in security. After Kevin discovered two other people having sex in his bed, improvised “Vacant/Occupied” signs were taped to the doors of every bedroom. Normally, he would have been upset over this, but his sense of hospitality told him that selfishness in this situation just wouldn’t help anything.
Tom Morrigan was staring out a window on the second-floor of his house, holding a shot of tequila in his right hand. The left one ran through his hair, and came to rest at the back of his head, where he firmly massaged the stiff muscles at the top of his neck. Linda was sprawled on an enormous bean bag, staring at the ceiling, a half-empty beer bottle within arm’s reach. Tom’s left hand fell to his side, and he did a few neck rolls, then picked up a wedge of lime.
“Well,” he said, contemplating his shot, “Here’s to cosmic fuck-ups and missed chances,” then downed the tequila and bit into the lime.
“You said it.” Linda reached for her bottle and took a long pull at it as she got to her feet and joined her husband at the window. He put his arm around her shoulder, she placed hers around his waist.
In the street below, people were literally tearing each other apart. Shambling figures, oblivious to the shovels and bats of their attackers, latched onto screaming victims with claw-like hands and ragged teeth. Tom emptied the last of the tequila into his shot glass and downed it, then went downstairs to perform a few last checks. He had locked and barricaded every door, boarded up every window, and turned off the generator. He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and then went back upstairs to join his wife, who had crawled into bed.
“You ready,” he asked as he settled in next to her.
“As I’ll ever be.” They embraced and kissed. Tom’s steady hand placed the note on the nightstand and returned with a bottle of sleeping pills.
Dee dreamed of zombies, rooftop shootouts, and long rides through barren countryside. The immensity on the horizon was closing in all around her, suffocating yet still out of sight. She couldn't outrun it, she couldn't fight it. She could feel the world closing in. Her tossing and turning woke Sam at several points throughout the night.
Friday morning arrived with hangovers for some, but renewed determination for most. Jack, the first to wake, went up to the Crow's Nest to take lookout. Kevin was up next, spotted Jack on duty, then made a note on the whiteboard that Jack was on lookout and he was taking door duty. He grabbed a book and headed downstairs.
Others woke up in various states, Dee somewhere in the middle. She had a brief moment of panic when she couldn't find her pills, then remembered the previous day's events and calmed down. This is OK, she told herself, I can handle this. She reasoned that as long as she made every attempt to keep a firm grip on reality, she ought to be able to keep it together. She then got a bottle of water and located the distillery schematics from last night. On a fresh sheet of paper, she attempted to draw up a new one, incorporating the best workable elements from each while trying to figure out how to solve the previous night's difficulties.
At some point, Dee realized that the generator hadn't been hooked up. The walkie-talkies had been charged on - what, Tuesday? Today was Friday morning, and - oh, Christ, how she needed a shower - but the walkies had been in almost continuous use. Even if the boys had rotated them based on battery level, they'd be close to empty now. She stepped out back with the charging dock, lighting a cigarette as she went to the roof, and worked on getting the generator running.
Jack August was sitting cross-legged in the Crow's Nest. He was looking through Cameron's binoculars with one eye, pretending he was a pirate in a real crow's nest surveying the horizon with a spyglass. There were no cars in the street, no planes in the air, no people on the sidewalks, and he had to come up with some way to keep his mind occupied.
Kevin radioed in to let Jack know that he was taking door duty. Jack responded, "Copy that," now feeling like a commando in some high-stakes military operation. Playing through the fantasy in his mind, he barely noticed as the back door opened and sounds of tinkering began on the main part of the roof below him.
Jack lowered the binoculars, leaned back, and stretched out his arms as he yawned. Looking around with both eyes now, he took in the sight of the ghost town below him. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he saw the silhouette of a single person in the morning light, a couple blocks North. Raising the binoculars to his eyes once more, he took a closer look.
It was a man. He walked haltingly, his head hanging limp from his shoulders, only occasionally raising it to look at the road ahead. He had bits of black stuff on his exposed skin. The shambling posture, the aimless wander, the empty expression - there was no doubt about it: this was a zombie.
Lowering the binoculars, Jack shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet. Walking to the chest, he opened it and retrieved the 9mm pistol that had been stashed there the night before. Setting the body of the weapon on the roof, he grabbed the clip and pushed a bullet into it. After sliding the clip up through the grip, he pulled the slide back, as he'd seen done in movies. Pressing the muzzle against the fleshy area between his chin and his throat, Jack closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Damn, that fucker was hard to pull.
Jack squeezed harder. Even with both fingers, he was unable to fire the pistol.
Shit, he thought, I forgot to take the stupid safety off. Searching the device, he eventually found the lever that would allow him to escape the coming zombie hordes.
Wait a minute. Most of the zombie apocalypse scenarios Jack had envisioned involved him either being alone in his apartment with throngs of the living dead beating down his door, or being among the first to turn. Barricaded in the Dojo, with days of food and water and a distillery in the works, he was in much better shape than he had imagined he ever would be. Jack found the button to release the clip, pulled the slide back again to eject the round in the chamber, and placed the whole mess back in the chest. Walking to the edge of the Crow's Nest, he spotted Dee working at the generator.
"Hey, Dee!"
"Yeah-huh?" Or did she say, Yeah, hon? It was one of her eccentricities that Jack had never been able to figure out. The first opportunity of his new lease on life did not escape him.
"Did you say, 'Yeah - huh,' or, 'Yeah, hon?'"
"Err - well, I actually mean 'Yeah - huh,' but I try to make it sound ambiguous."
"Oh. OK. Well, you should come up here and take a look at this."
Dee set her tools down, casually stood, brushed off her knees and the seat of her pants, and then walked over to the ladder and climbed up to join Jack.
"What's up?"
"Well, I was looking around, and - I think that's a zombie." Dee took the binoculars and peered through them for a long moment. Her curiosity satisfied, she handed them back to Jack.
"Yep, I'd say so. Goddamn."
"So what's the plan, then?"
"Well." Dee paused to think a moment. "We'll only get surrounded here. We need more exit points. I think the thing to do is to head to Wal-Mart."
"OK. I'll go tell the others."
"Hey, what ever happened to shooting yourself in the head?"
"Oh, that. Well, I tried, but I forgot to take the safety off. Then I realized that I'm much better off than I thought I'd be, so I decided to see how this goes."
"Oh. Good." Dee nodded thoughtfully, almost indifferently. Jack was slightly disappointed. He knew that Dee was a lesbian, but still, he had kinda hoped that she would be more upset at the prospect of his death - for some reason or another. No, Jack realized, he just hoped that she was attracted to him.
He had always wondered what it would be like to fuck a lesbian.
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