Marshall squinted in the sunshine as he scratched his chin in thought. He had to keep the game going or Ford would win again.

“All right, I got one.” Amused with himself and sure he had a stumper, Marshall kicked an island of sand that had gathered on the asphalt, scattering it to the wind. “‘The good guys always win…even in the 80’s.’”

He glanced over and up at Ford, checking his face for any sign of recollection.

“Hmm,” Ford puzzled.

Marshall smiled. “Need a hint?”

“Hmm.”

“You want the year, lead actor or story concept?”

“You think you got me, huh?”

The smile fell from Marshall’s face.

“Don’t bring it unless you’re ready for it to be brought-en!”

“Damn it. Go ahead,” Marshall sighed, defeated. “Give it to me.”

“ ’82, Barry Bostwick, Mega-f’en-force, bitch! Ugh!” Ford stopped and stooped into a Mr. Universe pectoral flex.

“Damn,” Marshall cursed as he walked past. “Your turn.”

In two long strides Ford caught up with him. “All right,” he said cheerily, “you wanna pull from the stumper stack? I’ll give ya one.” Donning a British accent, Ford emphatically said, “‘If I were creating the world I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!’”

Marshall laughed. “You’re really going for the gonads aren’t ya? Well, for your info, I got this one, needle-dick. ’81, David Warner, Time Bandits! Now, which one of the Time Bandits midgets was in Star…”

“Kenny Baker.”

“I didn’t even finish!”

“I know, but you wouldn’t pick someone harder like David Rappaport, who was Rinaldo in The Bride. Or Mike Edmonds and Tiny Ross, who were in Flash Gordon. Or Ian…”

“How’s my shoes look, butt nugget?” Marshall chided. Ford’s words were cut off in a garble as Marshall leapt up and grabbed his neck in a headlock. Marshall tightened his grip as his feet touched down, doubling Ford over.

“‘Check out the big brain on Brad!’ Who said that one, huh?” Laughing, Marshall playfully spun Ford in a widening circle, keeping him off balance. Ford chuckled and attempted to catch Marshall behind the knees. “You know, if I didn’t know any better I would say that a noogie might be coming your way,” Marshall chided.

“No!” Ford gurgled.

Ford struggled to get loose, but there was no way; Marshall had him locked.

Twirling asphalt grain was suddenly replaced by blue sky and white billowy clouds when Ford caught Marshall’s left knee and pulled the leg out from under him. The two crashed to the ground, laughing. As soon as Ford released his brother’s leg, implying an end to hostilities, Marshall rapidly rubbed his knuckles on Ford’s scalp.

“No!” Ford shrieked, struggling against his brother.

Marshall jumped to his feet and ran down the road, laughing, with Ford in hot pursuit. “‘Oh yeah!’” he shouted gravelly over his shoulder, channeling his inner Kool-Aid Man. “Who said that, smart-ass?”

Fear and excitement fueled his acceleration when the solid thumping of Ford’s footfalls came up quickly from behind. “Oh shit,” Marshall squeaked. A few seconds were all that separated him from what would be either an atomic wedgie or a near-fatal wet willy.

Marshall risked a peek over his shoulder and saw Ford slow and stop with three heavy footfalls. It was then that Marshall noticed the smell.

He skidded to a halt, arms flailing forward, trying to maintain his balance.

“Christ! What the hell is that?”

“It’s that car.” Ford motioned to a black sedan, the first car they’d seen in two days, parked neatly on the shoulder of the deserted back-country highway. A breeze picked up, wafting the sickly smell in their faces.

“Whew! What a stink!” Marshall coughed, waving his hand in front of his nose.

“C’mon. Let’s go check it out.” Ford smiled devilishly.

“Hell no! Man, ain’t a damn thing in that car we need.”

“No, nothing in the car. I just want the car.”

“Dude!?”

“Aren’t you tired of walking? I am. I say we kick whoever’s in there out, and drive our happy asses for a while.”

Marshall stood in stunned silence, blinking in disbelief. “Fuck that noise! I’m staying right here.”

“It might not be that bad,” Ford said cheerily as he strode up to Marshall. “Maybe they’re all mummy-like in there, and all’s we gotta do is drag ‘em out, air that bitch out for a bit and BAM! We got a ride!”

“You go right on ahead and do that,” Marshall said sarcastically with a dismissive wave, “I’m staying here. Besides, I don’t think ‘dead fucker’ comes out of upholstery all that easy.”

****

The condensation clinging to the inside of the windows obscured their view into the car. A ghostly shadow in the driver’s seat seemed to move slightly, its silhouette so thin that the neck appeared to be only a few inches wide. Were it not for the stench, one might think the driver had pulled over to take a nap.

They stood fifteen feet behind the black sedan when the wind shifted, blowing the offensive stink away and giving the brothers a brief respite. “Thank God for that.”  Ford said as he walked toward the car. He looked back at Marshall with a giddy smile. “Another minute and I was sure I’d lose it.”

Marshall glared at him. “I serious, man. If I suffer through this for nothing, I’m gonna kick you square in the nuts.”

Marshall’s displeasure ramped up a couple notches when the wind shifted again, basting him in a hot breeze weighed down by the oily reek of rotting flesh.

Ford wretched so hard his knees buckled. He caught himself, bracing his hands on his knees, grimacing at the horrible odor. He slapped his hand over his mouth and nose and wretched again.

Marshall’s eyes watered at the noxious odor. Its penetrating stink was unbelievably thick. He could taste it in the back of his throat. As smell-laden saliva slid past the point of no return, he reflexively swallowed and immediately gagged.

Wiping the tears from his eyes and fighting back the urge to vomit, Marshall looked up to see Ford standing beside the car, reaching for the driver’s door handle.

Ford hung his head and retched, then spat onto the ground, making a sour face.

“Hey, leave it,” Marshall shouted. “There’s no fucking way we’re driving that!”

“No way man!” Ford laughed. “No damn way! I’ve come,” he gagged the “come” out with a guttural heaving that left him leaning over with his hands on his knees again. “I’ve come too far to stop now. I’ve gotta see…” Ford covered his mouth with the back of his hand as a new, richer stench found its way onto his tongue. “I gotta see this asshole.”

“Goddamnit. It’s fuckin’ pointless, Ford! Leave it!”

Ford curled his fingers under the door handle and dropped into a wide stance. Marshall knew immediately what Ford was going to do. Like knocking down a wasp nest and running for cover from its angry inhabitants, Ford was going to yank the door open and run.

“One.”

“Leave it man!”

“Two.”

“Aw, Jesus.” Marshall drew his .22 pistol and took aim at the sedan.

“Three!”

Ford pulled the door handle and managed to take a step toward freedom before he realized that the door was still shut. Wincing at the smell, Ford reached again, grabbed the handle and yanked harder. As the door swung open, he sprinted to the opposite side of the road, across from the driver’s door, fending off a barrage of flies and the smell of rot.

“You ok?” Marshall shouted.

Hands on his knees, Ford waved off Marshall’s concerns as he squinted and grimaced against the putrid stink issuing through the open door.

Ford ducked his head, swatting at something that landed on his neck as sloppy brown liquid sloshed out of the car and onto the road.

“Zed?” Marshall shouted, watching Ford’s face for confirmation.

Ford straightened up, craning his neck for a better view into the car. Suddenly he pointed at the car and heaved hard, his body buckling under the tremendous force with which it wanted to throw up. He staggered back a few steps into the grass and spun around.

Looking back to the car, Marshall heard the splatter of Ford’s vomit striking the ground a second before more brown goop sloshed out of the driver’s seat, adding to the vile pool forming on the road. He rushed forward, putting himself between Ford and the creature.

Like a spider crawling from its burrow, withered black fingers wrapped around the edges of the doorway. Four fingers clung to the metal frame beside the windshield; the other four clutched midway down the door frame beside the driver’s seat. A hint of bone poked through the shriveled fingertips.

A leg swung out from the car, spilling more gelatinous brown goop—now tinged with streaks of black and green—to the asphalt as its penny-loafered foot flopped to the ground. The shoe made a wet, gurgling fart as fluid squished over the top and down the sides of the leather. Death-black flesh hung loosely at the dead man’s ankle.

The monstrosity tried to stand but fell backward into the seat. Marshall watched as what looked like gloves fell to the ground, slapping wetly as they landed in the expanding pool beneath the driver’s door. Like horrible rubber novelty items, the blackened finger-socks of flesh jiggled when they struck the ground.

Marshall felt the bile rising in his throat.

His mind could take no more. His stomach could take no more.

Marshall stepped back and took aim at the thing as it tried to sit up. The smell issuing from the car burned his nose; it was an acrid, pungent stink that made his eyes water. Bile pressed urgently at the back of his throat.

The zed in the driver’s seat floundered to pull itself upright. The skeletal fingers of one hand, clad in brownish-red muscle, clutched the steering wheel while the other grasped the driver’s seat headrest.

The luxury sedan’s leather interior was caked with maggots, flies and mold. The driver, rotting in the insufferable and stagnant heat, had provided a smorgasbord of nutrients for fungi, bacteria and insects capable of climbing in though the air-conditioning vents. Small patches of black and grey fluff clung to the zed’s clothing and the car’s interior. The driver’s polo shirt was a gray and green tie-dye of putrid body fluids and decay. The fabric, made translucent from the rendered fats of purification, clung to the corpse’s skin. The ribs and sternum showed through; languid flesh had allowed the cloth to sink into the interstitial spaces between the ribs.

It shook as it pulled itself forward, its decay-weakened muscles straining under the weight. Like a rubber Halloween mask, the thin flesh of its face dangled wetly from its head. The eyelids and nostrils hung well below their intended spaces, revealing slick, blackening muscle through the empty holes. Marshall could see the zed’s soaked and stained shirt through the gaping hole where the mouth should have been.

Marshall put two rounds into the head of the melting thing behind the wheel then threw up.

He kicked the door shut, holstered his .22 and walked over to Ford’s hunched figure. Pebbles scraped the road as he walked, held fast to his lug soles by remnants of vomit and putrescence.

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Did you see that one? Its face?” Ford wiped away tears produced by forceful heaves.

“You want me to kick you in the balls now or later?”

Ford chuckled hoarsely, pulled his canteen from his belt, rinsed his mouth and spat onto the gravel at his feet.

“Hungry?” Marshall slapped Ford heartily on the back, hoping to extract a little revenge by making him throw up again.

Still fighting the oily smell clinging to the back of his throat, Ford paled at the thought of food and gagged.

“‘How about a nice, greeeeasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?’” Marshall said with a sadistic lilt, sporting a smug grin.

Ford belched, then spit out what came up. “Chet aka Bill ‘Game over man’ Paxton, Weird Science, ’85. Douche nozzle.”

David remained quiet and still as he surveyed the dark aisles of the long abandoned grocery store. Sunlight filtered through the still intact wire clad glass at the front of the store allowing David to confirm that nothing moved. He silently climbed down from the hole in the ceiling and glided down the aisles pausing every so often to listen. The only bodies in the store were the dry long decayed jumbles of bone and clothing that posed no threat.

Mommy says I have to eat vegetables to keep strong.

David stopped in front of the rows of canned vegetables that stood in ranks on the store shelves. He unslung the pack from his back and pulled from it a fistful of thick cotton socks. He carefully selected cans of vegetables from the shelves, placing each can into a sock before placing them snuggly into the backpack. David tested his pack to make sure it made no sound when he moved, then satisfied moved down the row and did the same thing with two jars of peanut butter. As he moved to the exit something caught his eye. He stopped in front of a display of boxes at the end of an aisle.

Poptarts!! David’s mouth watered. He loved poptarts. Several boxes disappeared into his pack. He mentally marked this place as a place to visit again.

David shrugged on his backpack. It was heavy on his back but not unbearable. He left the store and began the slow halting journey back to his sleeping place. Only a couple of times did David see “them” but he was quiet and able to keep far away.

The noise from a falling trashcan lid echoed loud from a nearby alley. David ducked into the shadow of a crumpled police cruiser. He banged his leg on the open door, a jagged edge of metal drawing a thin red line on his shin. He winced in pain and froze, scanning the area for the source of the sound. Several minutes passed.

David waited and watched. Slowly a large grey cat emerged from the shadows of the alley, a freshly dead mouse held firmly in its jaws. The cat jumped silently to the stoop and then disappeared through a half open window in the tenement building across the street from where David watched.

“Poor mouse”, thought David, “I guess he was not quiet enough”.

After a few more minutes David resumed his journey to the safety of his sleeping place.

David’s sleeping place was in the crawlspace above his empty apartment in a tall four story tenement building. A louvered vent allowed in enough sunlight to see. In one corner was a jumble of blankets and a worn blue and red Spiderman sleeping bag. Peeking out from under the blankets was a ragged brown stuffed toy rabbit. Nearby the sleeping bag stacked in neat rows were cans of food, bottles of water, soda, and sports drinks, and boxes of other odds and ends David had collected.

He sat near the vent placing the last of ten multicolored bandaids on the cut in his shin. “Mommy would be proud of me” David thought, “Even though it hurt real bad I didn’t even cry.”. His leg ached. The bandaids did nothing for the pain but their bright colors made him feel better anyway.

After retrieving his rabbit and a tattered book from the blankets David sat down close to the vent. With “Mr. Moppet” perched in a place where he could “see” David opened the book. Colorful characters told their stories as David flipped through the pages. Pink and blue butterflies danced in the fading light. Sad bears in trousers, dashing capeclad cats, and pigs with hats and petticoats played across the pages. He remembered his mother speaking the words that went with the pictures. He remembered her warm presence as she read to him out of the book of bedtime stories.

He sat in the crawlspace above his apartment by the vent looking at the pictures in the book until the setting sun cut off his only source of light.

David awoke to the sound of rain. Eagerly he fumbled in his stack of supplies then sped quickly but quietly to the flat roof of the apartment building. He stopped and made sure the area was safe before he walked out in the open to the large tub slowly filling with rainwater.

Mommy says I have to get clean when I can.

David stripped off his clothes and threw them casually off the side of the building to the growing pile of clothes in the alley below. He opened the bar of soap and after allowing the warm rain to soak his naked body stepped into the tub and began to scrub his skin. The rain washed away layers of dirt and sweat. The water in the tub darkened to a murky brown as he bathed. David made sure to wash “all” the places just like his mother showed him.

After washing David ghosted through several apartments looking for fresh clean clothes. He was familiar with the area and knew the apartments that were occupied and the ones that were empty. Even with this information he still took time to check out each place before entering. He found clothes neatly folded on a shelf in a closet waiting for a child that would never again need them. They were a little big on him but otherwise OK. He chose a blue shirt with the picture of Mickey Mouse and shorts with pockets in case he found something. It was not long before he was once again clothed, the fresh clean clothes feeling good on his clean skin. By the time he had returned to his sleeping place the rain had stopped.

Mommy says never to talk out loud when I am away from my safe place.

Days later David again made his way into the unfamiliar neighborhood of the abandoned grocery. He crouched on the fire escape peeking into the open window of an apartment. He could see part of the living room and the entire kitchen. He waited, listening for the telltale shuffling that signaled danger.

Suddenly he saw her. She moved silently and tentatively down the hall and into the kitchen, stopping to look and listen for several minutes before going to the kitchen cabinets. David watched fascinated as she wrapped several cans in cloth before putting them in a bag. His heart beat fast within his chest. “She is not one of them” he thought. He made a decision.

Carefully he climbed in the window and glided over to her. Suddenly she turned on him, her body tensed in preparation to flee. His eyes met hers, round, white and full of fear, two large orbs in a dirty face. David raised his finger to his lips and gently said “Shhh.” They remained looking at each other for several long minutes.

David broke his mother’s rule, leaned forward slightly and softly whispered, “Come with me”. He turned and padded back to the open window. He looked back to see her hesitate with indecision, then slowly follow him.

The journey to David’s’ sleeping place took longer than before. David moved tentatively making sure she could follow, stopping and waiting for her or encouraging her with follow me hand gestures when she showed reluctance. During the journey he marveled at the way she moved, her steps nimble and silent. She always stopped to listen at all the right times. “She plays the quiet game really good” he thought.

They arrived at David’s sleeping place just as the sun was going down. Safe in his crawlspace David relaxed and saw her relax a little as well.

“We are safe here” he said in a soft voice, “I’m David, what’s your name?”

“Amy.” She replied in a small still voice.

“Do you want a poptart, I have lots” David said offering her a package labeled cherry.

Amy quickly devoured the offered treat then licked her fingers. David gave her another which Amy made disappear as quickly as the first.

“Is anybody with you?” asked David handing her a bottle of water. It felt good to watch her accept the things he gave her.

“My mommy is downstairs in my house” Amy said, “She can’t come up the stairs because of her legs. Only she is different now so I can’t be with her. I still see her sometimes through the window.”

“Yeah, My Daddy is like that” said David in commiseration, “I used to see him sometimes when I went out, but I haven’t seen him in a while. My mommy says he is not my Daddy anymore and I should run away if I see him.”

“Is your mommy here?” asked Amy with just a hint of hope in her little voice.

“No” replied David, “She got hurt and had to go away.”

They sat in silence for a while as the sun went down, the light in the crawlspace slowly fading.

“Do you want a sleepover?” asked David hopefully, “It’s almost dark outside and I’ll let you sleep with Mr. Moppet” he said holding out his stuffed rabbit for her to take. “You can have poptarts and peanut butter for breakfast.”

Amy took the offered bunny and after deliberating for a moment said “OK”.

David smiled. It was his first ever sleepover.

Amy was soon asleep on a pile of blankets, Mr. Moppet clutched tightly to her chest. David listened to her soft measured breathing in the dark. His nose twitched as he realized she smelled. He felt himself happy that she was here, even if she smelled. “Maybe her Mommy did not tell her the clean rule” he thought, “Maybe I could teach her the clean rule.” That thought made him feel good.

One last thought drifted through his head before sleep overtook him.

“Maybe she is not the only one out there” he thought, “Maybe there are others.”

“Quiet.”

“Like me.”

The Stryker careened around the corner and the men inside, packed so tightly that they could barely breathe, swayed back and forth into each other. It was an uncomfortable ride, but not a one of them would’ve preferred the alternative. The Gunny couldn’t really see much, locked as he was in the mass of men packed into the APC but he did spot some few details as it continued to roar away from the crowd of dead left behind.

The Stryker was heavily “modified”, meaning it was completely stripped down and any piece of equipment or electronics deemed unnecessary was removed. There were several portholes that had been roughly cut into the armored hull of the APC, with crude steel plates on hinges attached that could open up to the outside world and the bandanna woman who had saved their skins closed one such plate and latched it down and leaned a rather large riot shotgun against the hull and squeezed into the gunner’s seat where she used the LCD to scan around with the “ma deuce” on a servo at the top of the vehicle.

She saw the coast was clear for now, except for the occasional individual corpse that would wander out into the road at which point the driver would gun the engine and a distinct thump would be heard inside the vehicle, but other than that no other indication that a human form had just been turned into pulp by the 8 large wheels of the APC. She glanced back at the group of men packed into every available inch of the interior and then went back to watching the LCD.

“Spec 4 Lydia Smith, at your service! Call me Lids, we’re not big on rank these days.” she said as she continued to pan the servo around. The LT spoke up.

“Lieutenant Paul Volker, and I have to say.. Lids. That I’m damn glad you showed up when you did! I was seriously considering putting a bullet in my head.”

Lids smiled “Oh doncha think about that yet LT, we were out doing supply patrol in the city but as you can see we’ve come up pretty empty this time around. We were on our way back to base when we heard you guys open up.” The Stryker suddenly swerved and the men rocked back and forth into each other for a moment and another dull thump was heard on the hull of the Stryker.

“Sorry ‘bout that guys, Ned tends to get a bit crazy on the wheel.” She said loudly at the driver’s compartment. She got no response other than a gunning of the accelerator that kicked up their speed and another corpse slapped against the hull.

“Well Lids, we certainly appreciate the ride. What outfit you with?” questioned the LT.

“I was with the First Battalion of the 148th Infantry, but that was a long time ago. Today we’re just survivors like all the rest, if a bit more organized.” Lids said.

“So there are more of you?” The LT continued.

“Yup, about 280 of us. We’re based at the zoo.” She said glancing back at the LT occasionally.

“The Zoo?”

“Oh yeah, it’s the safest place around with heavy fencing and good security. That is also where the labs are.”

“Labs?”

Lids smiled “Yup, we have a scientific community of sorts, still doing active research.”

“I’m impressed.” The LT said with earnestness.

“Don’t be. We lead a pretty miserable existence to tell you the truth. Hand to mouth here in the city.” She said seriously and then picked up the mic to a CB that was haphazardly bolted to the wall of the Stryker.

“This is Lids. Got your ears on?”

“Sure do Lids! What’s up?” came a voice over the speaker.

“Coming in with… refugees.” She said with a wide smile on her face. “About a dozen”

“Roger on the reffs. I’ll get a clean team out on the gate to clear the way.”

“Roger and out” she said and she dropped the mic.

“So how come I have a platoon of the One Oh One in the middle of my city?” Lids asked the LT.

“Actually you have a squad of the One Oh One and another made up from a militia regiment, First Ohio.” The LT replied

“Ooooh… Militia boys eh? My uncle volunteered into one of those outfits, down near the ‘Nati.” She responded.

“Well, we’re all grateful to you for saving our asses.” the Gunny spoke up. Lids smiled back.

“No problem, Pops.”

She then returned to the LCD monitor as the Stryker roared north out of the heart of the city and towards the zoo. She swiveled the “ma deuce” back and forth. The LT stood over her shoulder and looked at what the display showed.

As they approached the Zoo the streets, which were virtually empty before, began to thicken with the odd clump or two of deaders moving around. The Stryker roaring by got their attention for a moment but then it was past and the dead continued on with the eternal parodies of their former lives. As they got near the gate however a large, thick knot of corpses could be seen piled up against the main gate of the zoo. A large sign that proclaimed COLUMBUS ZOO sat above an iron security gate, which swayed back and forth from the weight being pressed on it by the thick crowd of dead.

Suddenly the LT saw huge streams of flame roar out from the gate and move back and forth over the crowd and begin cooking and incinerating the dead in the immediate area of the gate sterilizing it long enough for the Stryker to rumble over the ashes and charred bodies and charge through the now open gate before it was closed instantly. Within a few minutes, fresh dead began moving towards the gate and collected against it, vainly reaching through the spaces in the iron and moaning in hunger and frustration.

The Stryker wound along several service roads and roared into a large vehicle garage and came to a stop. The hatch lowered and the men gratefully debarked into a large maintenance bay. The only other military vehicle within the structure was a vintage M-60 tank. The rest of the vehicles were a mix of pickups, golf carts and other vehicles marked with the logo of the zoo. The men looked around and thankful doesn’t even describe how they felt after the near death experience in the city.

“Wait here while I go find Dr. Humbacher.” Lids said as she walked out a door.

A hatch in the Stryker’s front opened and out climbed a man with a grey ponytail and wearing an ancient and faded Grateful Dead T-shirt and greasy jeans and he jumped down from the vehicle and went over to the loose standing group of men and up to the LT.

“Hey there fellas! Ned’s the name. Deadhead Ned. But you guys just call me Ned.” He said and put his hand out which the LT took.

“Paul Volker, This here is Gunny Raines” the LT said indicating to Raines at his side.

Deadhead Ned nodded and shook the Gunny’s hand as well. “I have to say guy, that wasn’t very smart getting into the Shootout at the OK corral in Downtown like that. We estimate there must be at least forty thousand dead in that area alone. If we hadn’t been in the vicinity?” the Gray haired hippy looking fellow said and then shrugged.

“Glad you guys came when you did.” said the Gunny and then turned as the door Lids had disappeared through opened and she came back in followed by a rotund little man with a bald head and wearing a pair of glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose and a white lab coat.

“This is Dr. Humbacher, formerly Professor of Biology at Ohio State University and head of our Board of Directors.” said Lids as they came up to the men, who except for the Gunny and the LT and Sgt Loomis had spread out and sat down on the floor of the garage, resting after the exertions of the day.

The little man came up to the LT and took his hand, he had a rather limp handshake, but the look in his eyes showed something sterner lay beneath, a kind of steel intellect. The Doctor repeated the process with the Gunny.

“Welcome to Columbus Gentlemen, I’m Dr. Humbacher. I can see right away you aren’t the typical starving skeletons we usually find hiding out in the city. Where’d you come from?”

The LT spoke up. “Well Doctor, I’m from the US Government, and I’m here to help.” This brought a quiet laughter to everyone in the room, except Dr. Humbacher who apparently didn’t get the joke.

“Well that is all well and good Lieutenant but wandering around the city aimlessly is statistically certain to get you killed. Why?”

“We’re looking for two girls, two very special girls.” The LT said

“The President’s Daughters you mean? Oh they are well taken care of and of no concern at the moment.“ Humbacher said with a dismissive wave and continued, “Your team can stay here and make themselves comfortable for now, we’re short of living space as you can imagine with over 250 people here. A meal will be served in about 2 and ½ hours. I’m afraid the portions are rather small, but we offer what we have.”

“We’re well provided for on personal rations Doctor, thank you. We’ll be fine on MRE’s for now, save your food.” Said the LT and the Doctor nodded.

“Well, if you and Gunny Raines was it? Would follow me, I’d like to show you something.” And with that he turned around and headed for the door to the bay. The LT and the Gunny looked at each other questioningly and then followed after the doctor.

They stepped through the door into a long corridor and then continued out a door marked EXIT where a golf cart sat patiently waiting. The Doctor beckoned the two men to get inside and then got behind the wheel where he started it up and proceeded to drive away from the maintenance garage. He then began explaining the setup of the zoo as they continued down the various footpaths through the park.

“Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, 700 acres in total area, although the Aquarium area is overrun and sealed off, so we only use about half that. There are 276 people here as of last count, 208 men, 47 women, the rest are children. You’ll notice if you look around, the distinct lack of animals in the areas. That is because they are dead, slaughtered for food. The carnivores were first to go.” He said with a smile. “Tiger is quite interesting actually.”

The Gunny and the LT smiled at the thought of living off of Lions and Tigers and Bears, but food was food and you took what you could get in times like these. The Golf Cart turned a sharp bend and came to a halt just before a large white structure. Red lettering on the Zoo themed sign on the door indicated RESEARCH AREA, EMPLOYEES ONLY.

They disembarked from the Golf Cart and the Doctor led the way as they went into the door and entered a spacious area with empty cages stacked up several high all around. The cages formed a series of corridors that the doctor led them through. The smell of animal still lingered throughout the empty building. They continued past the cages and entered into another door, this one marked PRIMATES.

“So what kind of research are you doing here Doc?” said the LT as he surveyed the room they had entered. There were more cages here, larger than the ones in the previous room, and these looked like they had been freshly inhabited. Signs with various names were on the cages like Tootsie, Sam and Beck.

“Looking for a cure of course or maybe a vaccination of some kind?” The Doctor said as he continued along to the end of the room where a large examination table was placed. The entire area was spotlessly sterile and smelled of bleach.

“These cages were once inhabited by every primate at the zoo. We kept them all alive in order to do experiments and see how Factor Z worked.” Humbacher said as they came to the table.

“Factor Z?” said the Gunny.

“That’s what I call it anyway, no one knows what it is exactly, could be viral. It could be some kind of mutation in our own genetic code too. We know it’s not bacteriological in nature but in all the experiments that I’m aware of before things got bad and since, we’ve never been able to successfully isolate any viral DNA from the blood of the dead or even recently infected. Experiments using every anti-viral known to man has failed to even slow down the onset of death and reanimation.” The doctor said with the kind of tone a teacher takes when giving a lecture, which he was in reality.

“Over time, we exposed every single primate to Factor Z. Just like humans, it killed them all within 48 hours, however unlike Humans, non-human primates apparently do not reanimate. All of them just died, except one.” said the Doctor over his glasses.

“What?” said the LT. “You say that non-human primates don’t reanimate but are killed by this Factor Z. However one actually survived? As in immune?”

“Precisely so Lieutenant, come with me.” And with that he turned and went through yet another door which led to a large balcony overlooking a rather spacious habitat area. It resembled a child’s play ground with a jungle gym and wooden platforms spread around the area. Sitting on its haunches staring back at the men, was a large Gorilla. He had black, course fur and a massive bare chest along with a prominent, whitish stripe of short fur on his back. He sat there, looking up at the men on the balcony and scratched at himself. He looked rather bored to the Gunny which was confirmed by a stiff yawn from the beast. Wickedly long and sharp canines glinted ivory in the sunlight. It had a monstrous and thick conical shaped head, with a pair of intelligent eyes that looked around the habitat with the boredom a prisoner in a prison cell might display.

“This is Kang. Kang is a 27 year old Male Silverback Lowland Gorilla from Uganda. He’s been living at the Zoo for almost 15 years now. He’s rather docile for a Silverback really, probably a result of separation from the rest of his group. He’s quite lonely, and I’m pretty much his only friend. He’s a playful fellow really, except when the dead get near him.”

“What happens then?” said the LT with keen interest.

“What do you think? He tears them apart limb by limb.” said the Doctor matter of factly and this brought a smile to the Gunny’s lips.

“He’s quite immune to Factor Z, though we haven’t been able to isolate any difference in his blood with any of the other gorillas in his group that Factor Z proved very fatal too. So we have no idea what makes him tick really.” said the Doctor with a bit of wistful curiosity. The men could see that he had a burning question mark in his head and Factor Z was a frustration because it stymied all of his years of biological expertise.

“However, there was just one problem that developed unexpectedly.” said the Doctor as he looked out over the habitat area.

“What was that?” said the Gunny.

“One of the people was bitten several months back and I decided to see if exposure to Kang’s blood might make a difference. Unfortunately, it did.” said the Doctor with not a little bit of regret.

The LT thought he knew where this was going and the color drained from his face. “Don’t tell me.” He said to the Doctor.

The Doctor merely confirmed with a nod of his head. “I ran an IV into the subject with Kang’s blood. The effects were completely unexpected. The poor woman, did I mention she was a she? Actually managed to survive the longest of anyone I had seen survive initial infection before onset of death. Four days, nearly twice as long as usual.”

“So it didn’t quite work, but?” said the Gunny

“When she revived, she had maintained much of the agility and strength she had when she was alive. She also possessed an extremely fine tuned predation instinct and obviously some kind of higher thinking.” The Doctor said in response.

“You made the hissers?” said the Gunny

“Correct. Completely unintentionally I assure you. I was just trying to save a poor woman’s life!” whined the Doctor

“So what happened after that?” said the LT

“I decided to study her. But after a couple weeks in confinement, she managed to get loose, kill two men and escape. Before long we began getting attacked by other dead exhibiting the same effects. I assume that being a more efficient hunter than the other dead; she probably managed to hunt out isolated survivors within the city, with the obvious effect of spreading her particular form of Factor Z.” the Doctor said, his voice hushed.

“Shit!” cussed the LT “So how many of these things do you think are out there?”

“There’s no way to tell.” said the Doctor. “It depends entirely on the density of survivors per square mile in the city. There could be on the order of several hundred at least.” The Doctor had obviously been doing the math before.

“Well damn Doc. You created a whole new species of deader, one meaner than the ones we already have to deal with. I understand you did it by accident, but damn Doc, bad accident!” said the Gunny as he turned in disgust from the balcony.

“Yeah Doc, really,” said the LT in agreement. “As soon as you found out what the hell she had become you should’ve shot her in the head right then and there. Why did you keep her around?”

“Professional curiosity.” said the Doc with quite some repentance.

“Well it might just have killed all the cats Doc. Damn.” replied the Gunny as he shook his head and walked through the door.

* * *

The trio piled back into the golf cart and didn’t have much to say to each other at first as the cart wound its way across the zoo grounds. Eventually the LT spoke up “Look Doc, this has all been real interesting but I was sent here for the girls. Where are they?”

“That’s where we are headed now. Over to the living quarters, they’ve been with us about two weeks now. They showed up one day in an upper level window in one of the buildings across the street from the main gate. Apparently the group they had been travelling with were ambushed and killed by several of these hissers as you call them.” The Doctor said with obvious distaste. It was apparent he didn’t like that epithet for them, accurate as it was. “We formed a clean team and they went out and got them back inside the zoo. They were extremely lucky to have survived.”

“These clean teams, are they the guys with the flamethrowers?” said the LT.

“Correct. We scavenged a few of them along with spare tanks from the Guard Armory downtown. We’re actually fortified quite well here. Heavy fencing that has been reinforced as necessary surrounds the entire grounds. The gates have been reinforced as well, as the dead like to congregate along those most of the time and when the sentries on duty deem the crowd has gotten too big, or if we need to open the gates, WHOOSH and it buys us anywhere from 5-7 minutes with a sterile gate.”

“Not to bad.” said the Gunny.

“Times are good right now with it being deep winter. Things can be very lively here in the summer when the dead are most active. We do get breaches once in the awhile, especially since the hissers became more numerous of late. In the last six weeks we’ve lost four men.” Humbacher continued as he came to the parking lot of a large warehouse. The parking lot had picnic tables with umbrellas scavenged from around the zoo scattered about and small groups of civilians sat or stood in various congregations around them. Some of the people looked up and waved as the Doc’s cart came zooming up.

“This is the living quarters. Most everyone lives here though we have a few brave souls who have staked out their own patches of territory throughout the zoo. Some of them are a bit off, but everyone is decent and works together to maintain what we have here. The biggest problem I have is dealing with tension between the men over the women in the zoo. But we have ways of dealing with that as well.” Humbacher said.

A dark haired and bearded man, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a windbreaker with COLUMBUS ZOO stenciled onto it came up to the cart. “Hey Doc, got some newbies for us?” he said.

“Not quite Karl, they’re military, sent to check up on our two VIPs.” Humbacher said in response.

“Oh?” Karl said and eyed the Gunny and the LT then nodded. “The girls are over in the house. I can take them from here Doc if you’re busy.”

“Good idea Karl,” the Doctor stated and then turned to the Gunny and the LT. “This is my Manager of Operations Karl Jones. He can take you to the girls and show you around some more. I have a meeting with my colleagues shortly, so I will leave you two with him.”

The Gunny and the LT nodded and climbed out of the cart and then with a high pitched hum the golf cart zoomed forward and the Doc was gone. The Gunny and the LT watched him go then turned to Karl who had blue eyes and dark hair and an equally dark beard. His smile was warm and he extended his hand to each one of them and they exchanged names.

Once the formalities were concluded, Karl led the LT and the Gunny towards the large warehouse that made up the main living area of the zoo. The men entered the door into a large, spacious, and nearly empty warehouse. Nearly empty except for the double tiered wire frame bunks that were lined up in neat ranks and files that spread through the entire interior. Some civilians were scattered about the dorm here and there. Some lay on their bunks asleep, others reading and some just whispering quietly to each other. It had the quiet atmosphere of a library at the moment.

Karl spoke up, “Most everyone is out right now on duty. We maintain strict schedules here, no slackers. Everyone has a job depending on their skill set or talents as we discover them even the children. We have many of the modern conveniences still. We have power generation because the zoo, being a zoo, installed solar panels for much of its electrical needs. You’ll notice them scattered about the roofs of the buildings and set up on various poles and other things throughout the zoo. Of course that means only electricity during the day but we do have backup generators and plenty of gasoline to make up for research or living demands with proper rationing policies. The Board of Directors, or “Brain Trust” as we call them, call the shots around here mostly, though thankfully they tend to be pretty liberal and aren’t trying to set up some kind of despotic regime around here like tends to happen in places like this. We’re pretty lucky actually.”

“I’m surprised. Usually when we penetrate an urban zone we find little scattered colonies of starving, feral people ready to kill on sight. That you guys have managed to create this Shangri la in the middle of a major metropolitan area is an achievement.” The LT said in complimentary tones.

They continued across the building, winding around bunks. The LT and Gunny looked at each small space as they passed by. Each bed was made and tidy, like in a military barracks. Each one had a plastic box of some sort to act as a footlocker that was pushed up underneath each bunk. Some personal items, trinkets and other things were visible on small tables of every sort and size that were scattered around the beds. Family pictures mostly.

“As you can see with so many people living in so small a space, conflict naturally develops. Most problems are easy to solve by separating the two parties for awhile but sometimes we have more serious incidents.”

“Define serious.” said the LT

“The occasional crimes that occur when people are pushed to an almost primeval form of existence, things like serious assaults, rape, even murder.” said Karl as they came to door leading into another area of the warehouse.

“What do you do then?” asked the LT

“Hold a trial of course. Three of the six Directors are chosen by random lot to act as a tribunal. One director is assigned by lot to become the accused persons advocate and one is chosen by lot to be the prosecutor for the community. The last remaining Director becomes a sort of court reporter and record keeper. A jury of six is chosen from the community according to random lot as well.” Karl walked through the door and they were in a separate corridor which led off to offices that now made up more private quarters.

“Not a bad way to dispense Justice.” said the Gunny.

“It works for us pretty well. Sentences can vary from extra sentry duty, assignment to latrine or other unpleasant work details and other stuff like that. For the most serious offenses we have exile, but no capital punishment here.” he then came to a wooden door and knocked.

“Exile into this city is pretty much a death sentence any way.” agreed the LT as the door opened and a young woman with long brown hair and eyes of the same color answered the door wearing an Ohio State sweater and a pair of jeans.

“Hi Karl! Whats up?” she asked while making a girlish grin.

“Hey Samantha, these guys came a long way to check on you and your sister.” Karl said

She looked over at the two men and looked them up and down and then frowned. “Our father sent you didn’t he? I told Kathy not to use that damn phone we found! Now she’s ruined everything!” and she slammed the door in the men’s face. The LT and Gunny stood there flabbergasted as she was heard stomping into the room and began yelling at her sister, her shrill screams piercing the wood of the door. The argument bloomed as her sister screamed back in response and the two girls were heard bickering as they once again returned to the door, then just before the door opened there was a distinct moment of silence before the door flew open and the two girls were standing there bright and sunny with smiles, as if the explosion of dual rage the men heard had never even occurred.

“Hi, I’m Kathy. My sister says Daddy sent you?” Kathy said, a pleasant smile on her face. She was blonde and blue eyed, with perfect lips though how genuine her smile was could be debated after the shouting match that had not ended but ten seconds ago.

“I’m Lieutenant Paul Volker and this is Gunny Raines. Yes, your father personally sent me here to check up on you and your sister and evacuate the two of you to Aspen ASAP.” The LT said matter of factly.

Samantha scowled in anger. “I don’t want to go back! You don’t know what kind of hell it will be with all this shit going on! We’ll be like prisoners, with some scummy goon guard wearing sunglasses and an ear bud who speaks into his sleeve. Always watching you to make sure your precious little ass doesn’t stub a toe. I’m not going back to that!” she said with resolute anger and firmness. Kathy, while not as vocal as her sister, seemed to be in at least partial agreement judging by the look on her face.

“Look madame, I understand that maybe you think you are safe here but you most certainly are not. At any time the security of this place could fail.” The LT said and this brought Karl’s ire up.

“Hey now, I’ll have you know that this place is impregnable.” Karl said with resolved certainty.

“Yeah sure buddy, whatever you say. I’ve seen entire army bases wiped clean off the Earth by hordes so large they stretch from one end of the horizon to the other like herds of buffalo. You don’t stand a chance here over the long run and with these hissers running around it’s the final countdown buddy. You need to plan to get the hell out of here.” The LT said loudly and silence prevailed for a moment.

“Sam, maybe they’re right, I mean at least we’ll be in Aspen with Mom and Dad. They haven’t heard from us but for a few minutes in almost two years sis. We have to go home sometime.” Kathy said, placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder. Her sister shrank from her strong woman act and deflated like a balloon and broke into sobs as she retreated to a couch in the room.

Kathy looked back at the men in the hall. “How are we supposed to get out of here? Walk?”

“Nope, caravan.” responded the Gunny and the LT nodded in agreement.

“You need to take us to the Brain Trust Karl, we need to talk to them.” said the LT.

* * *

A short while later the Gunny and the LT stood in front of a boardroom table that was laid out in front of them where the Brain Trust was holding their meeting. Doctor Humbacher sat at the head of the table. The other four men and one woman who made up the Brain Trust, each in various casual wear made their introduction.

After Dr. Humbacher, there came Dr. Sheila Wright, Professor of Sociology. Then there was Arthur Young, former city councilman of Columbus. Next to introduce himself was Keith Morris, Director of the Columbus Zoo. The other two men in the Brain Trust were brothers, Sam and John Wilson. They ostensibly represented the interests of the many Ohio State student survivors who inhabited the zoo grounds and as a result were younger and rougher looking than the decidedly older members of the Brain Trust. While it couldn’t be said this group of six formed an outright oligarchy, it was close enough.

“Look. I know that you people have been here for a long time and feel real secure in this gilded cage, but I am trying to explain to you that when the weather warms up in a couple weeks, you people are going to be in a world of hurt.” The LT pleaded to the council.

Dr. Wright spoke up, she was an older woman with grey streaks running through her hair, which was pulled back into a bun and she wore thin glasses that hung on the bridge of her long nose.

“We spend much time and effort keeping the people safe here Lieutenant, you really have some nerve just riding in here and making demands that we should just pack up and leave.” Several of the men around the table nodded in agreement. Dr. Humbacher was not among them.

“Lady, this isn’t some game I’m playing with you. I have the full authority of the President of the United States..” at which point she stood up and screamed shrilly at the Lieutenant, the force of which drove him back on his heels.

“THERE IS NO MORE UNITED STATES YOU ARMY PIG! IT’S GONE! YOU PEOPLE DESTROYED IT!” and her scream sort of hung in an echo for a moment around the room before she regained her composure and neutral expression once more. “We here on this Council no longer recognize the authority of the United States Government, and therefore the President.” She said matter of factly, as if that was the end of the matter and retook her seat. The Gunny and the LT were simply flabbergasted at the venomous vibe this shrew just hurled in their direction and they were caught silent for a moment.

Dr. Humbacher intervened, “These men came a long way and deserved to at least be heard. I thank them on behalf of the Council for bringing these matters to our attention and they will be given due consideration in the future. On to the matter of the girls…”

Dr. Wright interrupted. “The girls do not wish to go back. They are staying here.” Once again with the same tone as if that was all there was to the matter.

The LT lost his own temper then, though his voice was quiet and low, with a hint of threat. “Lady, I’m under direct orders from my Commander in Chief to return those girls to his custody and I fully intend to fulfill those orders or die in the process.” making it quite clear where he stood on the issue.

The shrew refused to back down. “No Lieutenant. As long as those girls remain here with us then those Pigs in Aspen will leave us alone to live as we see fit. We have no wish to return to the auspices of the corrupt Republican government that precipitated this crisis by trying to force the Earth into submission and therefore causing it to fight back with the zombie plague. We are building a new society here. One based on empathy and social justice and environmental sustainability, not the corrupt and capitalist ways of the ancien regime.”

The Gunny shook his head in amazement and then spoke up “Dr. Wright, no one gives a shit what you people do here. You want to stay here and feed yourselves to the dead of the city then that is your business, but we were sent here specifically to ensure these girls got back to their parents and your little oligarchic dystopia here is in no danger of collapse from that.”

Dr. Humbacher regained the floor “Please! Everyone stop! Mr. Raines there is no reason to insult this Council with insinuations of despotism. I assure you we care greatly about the lives of the people here and take all due consideration to our security and safety. As far as the girls are concerned there is some dispute as to whether they want to leave. We will adjourn until tomorrow morning where the girls can make their wishes known and we can further discuss security measures. Until then this meeting is finished.” and as he stood up the rest of the Brain Trust stood as well and proceeded to file out of the room without another glance or word at the Lieutenant and Gunny Raines.

A little while later, the Gunny, the Lieutenant and Sgt Loomis along with Lids, were standing off to one side in the vehicle bay examining the vehicles available in case they needed to bug out in a hurry with a large group of people in tow. There was Lids’ Stryker, half of a dozen pickup trucks, two shuttle buses and a tractor trailer rig. Then there was the M-60 tank, which stuck out like a sore thumb.

“What’s the deal with this antique?” said the LT as he looked up at Lids while she climbed up onto the turret of the armored beast.

“Some tank collector slash restorer guy donated it to the guard armory to put on display. The main gun is breech blocked and non-functional of course but this fifty mounted on the pedestal is functional enough and she drives like a dream. She’ll tear up anything that gets in her way.” Lids said with a huge grin as she slapped the metal of the tank in affection.

The LT nodded and considered how the tank could work into an escape plan. They needed to be able to drive through the city to the south side where the First Ohio truck and its guards would hopefully still be alive and waiting. Once there they would spirit the girls to the safety of Benny’s farm where the Lieutenant fully intended to get on the horn with National Command Authority and advise them of the situation with the hissers, and recommend Columbus be authorized for permanent sterilization, which was the official term for nuking a city.

“Do you have gas for all these vehicles Lids?” the Gunny inquired.

“Well, we have enough to top ‘em all off at least.” Lids responded. This brought a nod from the Gunny.

Loomis spoke up then, “Sir. This could work. We’ll put this bad boy in the lead, put the other trucks and the shuttle buses in the middle and have the Stryker follow up the rear to police up any stragglers or aid in case of an accident. We might be able to take as many as a hundred folks out of here.”

“Sarge I’m thinking the exact same thing. Lids, unless you want to stick around and become lunch for some deader, we could really use your help.” The LT said up at her.

She grinned at him wickedly and replied “Well LT, I’ve been kinda bored around here lately anyway. So I don’t think I’ll miss this place much. At least in Aspen I can ski!” She then jumped down from the tank. “I’ll go talk to as many people as I can, try to get a handle on how many may want to break out with us.” She then disappeared out the door leaving the men behind to consider the rest of the breakout plans.

* * *

Like all would be despots, no matter how petty. Dr. Wright had managed to consolidate under her control a network of like minded snitches and informants that made up a large part of her power base. Most of the Ohio State survivors were former students of hers, and often she would hold quiet meetings with the more influential members of the student body, indoctrinating them as the all important seed stock that would build the perfect future, securing their loyalty. It was her scheme that got the Wilson Brothers appointed to the Brain Trust, the idea being that they would be her rubber stamps on the Council and increase her power and influence, which it did.

She placed her lackeys in key positions of authority that guaranteed her tight control of the “variables”, by which she meant people not under her direct influence. She particularly despised the freer souls who had abandoned the communal living arrangement in the Living Quarters and staked out claims throughout the zoo. They tended to subsistence farm, and rarely had much to do with the day to day running of the community. These people would have to be brought into the fold eventually, or exiled in her opinion.

While Dr. Humbacher concerned himself primarily with his fool’s errand research into Factor Z, she had chosen upon herself the noble project of building the perfect socialist society. At first when the Apocalypse came, she was like all the others, almost as mindless with terror as the dead were with hunger. She had personally witnessed one of the gruesome final stands of Government authority at one of the barricades outside the Ohio State campus.

She had awoken to shouts and heavy activity beneath her window, and climbed out of her bed leaving the naked and snoring form of one of her male students behind and put on a thick robe. She then went to the window where the balcony that was attached to her apartment was. She opened the double paned glass doors and stepped out onto a scene of absolute chaos and terror. Gunfire was popping off all over the city, and explosions and fires were seen raging blocks away leaving the horizon awash in an orange glow, punctuated by the dark forms of the buildings that made up the Columbus skyline. The smell of death and cordite was on the wind and the stench of sulfur combined with rotten flesh made the bile rise in her throat. It all added a sense of urgency to the scene beneath her.

A mixed group of the military and police could be seen in the brightly colored strobe lights of police cars erecting barricades using whatever vehicles they could get the keys to. They piled the vehicles across the road, clear up to the walls of the buildings on each side of the street. Grim men in Kevlar helmets stacked sandbags onto the line of vehicles, forming a low parapet from which the men could fight. Off to the side, several men were assembling some kind of heavy weapon in a sandbagged pit. They shouted back and forth to each other and a radio in a nearby police cruiser squawked status reports, she could clearly hear them in the crisp, late evening air.

“This is Unit 7! Be advised I’ve got a huge crowd of IP’s heading up East 5th towards the Campus!” came over the air along with the screams of hundreds of terrified people that could be heard. In the background, faint but audible were the terrible wails of the hungry dead.

“Roger Unit 7, Unit 6 is enroute.”

“Unit 7 here, don’t bother! I’m falling back! There are thousands of them! They’re literally tearing people out of their cars and eating them on the street!” his voice was high pitched with terror and in the back ground distinct pops could be heard as armed individuals engaged targets. Their desperate calls to each other added to the auditory disaster unfolding.

“Negative on the fall back Unit 7. Unit 6 will instead reinforce.” the dispatcher responded.

“Unit 7, FUCK THAT, We’re outta here!” came the desperate voice on the other end.

“Unit 7? Unit 7? Please Respond.” This went on for several moments and then a large volume of gunfire erupted just off to the East, startling Wright for a moment then the speaker squawked again.

“This is Unit 6! We drove right into a huge pack of them! They’re everywhere!” The sound of gunfire could be heard in the background and the bloodcurdling moans and cries of the crowd of dead was evident over the speaker and one of the men in the unit was screaming over and over again “Back the fuck up! Back the fuck up! Oh shit!” The gunfire reached a hair-raising crescendo, echoing up the street and then went suddenly silent.

“Unit 6, this is dispatch. Unit 6, come in.” but instead a terrifying, inhuman moan pierced the airwaves and all the men working the barricade stopped in their tracks and stared at the cruiser a moment, the absolute fear etched onto each man’s face was perfectly visible in the bright blue and red strobe lights of the cruiser. There was a moment of silence before the speaker squawked to life.

“Unit 12 here, I’ve got eyes on Unit 6, he’s gone. They’re crawling all over him like ants. We’re falling back another block, there are thousands here. The poor civilians are being torn apart by these animals and we can’t do anything about it!” the rage and frustration felt by the sender came over loud and clear on the radio along with the chaos that could be heard on the air now. The very wind carried terrified screams of civilians to Dr. Wright’s unwilling ears.

“Unit 12, negative on the fall back, repeat, negative on the fall back we must hold them as long as possible until the barricades are ready at the campus.”

“That’s a big negative dispatch, we’re falling back another block to 4th. We’re almost cutoff already, Unit 12 out.”

An entire chorus of similar radio messages poured in, hammering the big picture deep in to Dr. Wright’s mind that the entire world she knew was coming to an end. Her hand rose to her mouth in terror when she realized that her apartment sat right at the corner of East 5th and High, just south of the Campus. That meant the dead were only a half dozen blocks or so away.

She immediately scrambled into her apartment screaming frantically at her former bed mate to get his ass up out of bed and get lost. She then began packing what clothes she could just as the first moans were heard outside her window and the shouts of “There they are! Open fire!” rang out before her world suddenly exploded into a barrage of gunfire so loud she screamed from the suddenness of it. Her companion yelped and screamed “See ya babe!” and ran out the door with just his pants on, barefoot and shirtless.

She frantically put on some jeans and a shirt and leaving everything behind but her purse, sprinted down the stairs and out into the streets. What she saw terrified her beyond all compare. Hundreds of dead were shambling mindlessly down 5th Street in a compact wall of flesh. The sound of all the gunfire and moans and screams detonated around her, the very air shook with the wall of sound that assaulted her hearing.

She saw the dead falling, but for every one that fell five more took its place and many of the ones that did fall managed to climb to their feet again and rejoined the mass. As it moved closer, even more dead began to fall and as they were mowed down yet still more came. Blood from the fresh dead collected in the gutters and ran in a thick sluice into the sewer. The dead piled up against the barricade like a wave, their mass so large that the entire barricade shifted. One cop suddenly slipped and screamed out in abject primal terror as he fell into the crowd of dead who then pounced on him and tore him apart with the efficiency of a chainsaw. The men standing on the cars and trucks that formed the barricade fired directly down into the crowd while a group of burly civilians in all manner of dress came running around the corner and towards the barricade. They were armed with every kind of tool for weapons. Machetes, crudely fashioned spears, pitchforks, butcher knives, baseball bats, handguns and every other form of weaponry imaginable was present in the hands of the crowd of men. Dr. Wright breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the cavalry had come to save them all.

They ran forward and mounted the barricade with the military and police and wildly began hacking and slashing away at the dead beneath them on the barricades. Dead began falling into the crowd, their heads broken and smashed, however the bodies of the dead soon piled up higher and higher. The dead behind them were then able to clamber up the pile to the level of the sandbag parapet. The exhausted men on the top of the mass of vehicles and bodies soon began to succumb to weariness and it became obvious that they couldn’t hold much longer.

One heroic soldier, manning the large machine gun nest anchoring one end of the barricade held the trigger down and let a never ending stream of rounds into the crowd as it piled up against the barricade. The huge bullets tore through the crowd, blowing huge gaps that were soon filled by more dead. Then a huge knot of the crowd surged toward his position. He screamed out and held the trigger down, wiping out an enormous chunk of the horde but not enough. Their bodies began to pile up around his position before the barrel on his weapon overheated, warped and sagged and the weapon jammed up tight. The soldier rose from his now useless weapon and drew a Beretta and took several carefully aimed individual shots before the crowd was upon him. Just as the icy cold fingers of the dead wrapped themselves around his body he put the weapon in his mouth and fired.

Several of the men were snatched from the barricade and disappeared into the crowd of dead, their screams piercing and painful over the gunfire. It was just too much and the entire unit broke and began jumping off the barricades and running for their lives north towards the Campus, Dr. Wright running along with them. She looked back and the blood drained from her face as she saw the dead pouring over the barricade like a water fall.

That was almost two years before and since then she had triumphed over adversity in her mind and managed to not only survive, but also create a seedling for future generations to build around. A seedling that she lovingly cared for and tended to as she waited for the day when the dead would finally rot away and she could begin the process of rebuilding society the way it was supposed to be built. Where everyone would have a say in the production and distribution throughout the society and that say would be enacted and enforced through a larger, more powerful Brain Trust who could wield the power that would be necessary to grant them with both responsibility and justice.

But now, the seedling was in danger of being uprooted and crushed by representatives of the corrupt and greedy ancien regime. In her mind, like all nascent socialist communities in history her creation was now in danger of being destroyed by capitalist greed before it could blossom and grow from a community into a society. Sarah Hollinger provided her with the key information. That bitch Lydia was going around spreading lies and fear about the safety of the zoo’s defenses and offering a way out. Worse, people actually were beginning to believe her, and some were starting to talk about leaving the community for the West. Sarah said Dr. Humbacher had been meeting with some of the people and might leave himself. The ingrates wanted to abandon her noble project and return to the ancien regime with all its environmentally unsustainable greed. She had to do something.

“Thank you Sarah, for bringing this information to my attention. Don’t worry the gates and fences are strong enough to hold back anything. Remember how I explained that certain forces of greed and evil still lurk in the world and would one day come and try and “reclaim” the land they stole and so never had rightful claim to in the first place? The land we are going to reserve for The People? That time has come, and we must act swiftly or lose it all.” Dr. Wright explained to the naïve young girl and then proceeded to outline her plans.

* * *

Dr. Humbacher sat at his desk in the Primate Research Area going over his notes and peering through a microscope at a culture of Kang’s blood. It was almost 2 am and he removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with exhaustion. He heard the door to his office open and he turned around to discover Dr. Wright standing there.

“Sheila? What are you doing here?” he said in confusion.

“I want to discuss the future and security of our community Doctor. I understand you met with some of the people and that there is talk of leaving.” she said, the look in her eye was distant, hazy.

Dr. Humbacher sighed and responded. “Sheila, I indulged in your little social experiment because the concept was solid for a community such as this one to adopt and survive under the current circumstances. However, the concept is predicated upon the voluntary interactions of the people here. Many do not want to stay here anymore.”

Dr. Wright’s face took on a scowl. “That is a lie! They merely remember their old wasteful lives and naturally have some wish to return to them, like a homesick child who cries for its mother at summer camp. We’ve just never provided the right message for the people to latch onto! It’s obvious that mere survival isn’t good enough anymore. The people need a vision, then they will realize how important the work we are doing here is.” she said with the desperation of a fanatic.

“Sheila, the experiment is coming to an end one way or another. I intend to broach the subject at the Council meeting tomorrow morning and recommend that we leave and take as many people with us as possible. Once far from here, as I understand it, the Lieutenant is going to recommend to the President that the city be permanently sterilized with a nuclear weapon. I agree with that assessment. These new dead cannot be allowed to spread.” He stated emphatically and stared her down. The blood drained from her face and her mouth dropped. No! They wouldn’t dare destroy her city!? Everything she worked for, her society, the most important thing she’d ever done. Humbacher stood there with hands on his hips, waiting for response. A sneer crossed her face.

She responded by reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small .380 automatic and pointing it at Humbacher, who blanched when he saw it and his mouth dropped in shock.

“I cannot allow you to destroy the future. The beginning of a new age has dawned! The corrupt capitalists, and their shills like you have no place within it.” and she pulled the trigger. There was a loud POP then a bright flash illuminated the dim office. A splash of red appeared on Dr. Humbacher’s lab coat and he clutched at the site and then collapsed to the floor. As the smoke cleared she smiled a soft smile, then turned and walked out the door.

A few minutes later, Dr. Humbacher groaned and stirred. He began crawling towards the door from his office that led out into the Primate Habitat. He left a broad streak of blood on the tiled floor as he made his way the short distance. He was just able to push the door open and crawl out onto the grass of the habitat, where Kang sat on the other side, curiously watching him as Humbacher fell onto the grass face first and expired, his body laying halfway into the habitat.

Kang, the short silver hairs on his back rising at the smell of blood, became curious and alarmed that his only friend looked hurt. He got onto his knuckles and slowly lumbered his giant frame over to Humbacher’s prone body on all fours. He nudged the body gently as a pool of red spread out and soaked into the dirt. Kang’s intelligent eyes took in the scene and his animal senses told him that somehow the Doctor was dead. Kang lowered his head and made a kind of anguished groan while continuing to prod at the Doctor’s body, but eventually gave up.

Kang then noticed that the door was open, and a new scene was before him. Curious, he carefully stepped over Humbacher’s body, and entered into the office. He was tentative, maybe even fearful at first to see these surroundings. Eventually the fear shook off and he knuckle walked his way to the other exit. The one that Dr. Wright had left previously through, and pushed it open and entered into the zoo at large.

* * *

A man sat alone on a chair at the main gate, watching the undead corpses shake the gate back and forth with the weight of their combined mass. Reaching out and moaning in frustration that such a meal was just out of reach, the corpses at the gate like a wave rolled back and forth. This was the worst duty for him. He was always afraid he would see some loved one or friend he knew appear at the gate, wanting to eat him. So far such a horror hadn’t presented itself, but if it ever did he doubted he’d be able to sentry the gate again.

What he couldn’t see in the darkness, was a shadowy form quietly creep over the fence off to his right a few dozen yards. He did however hear it when it landed in the bushes on the near side. He looked over in the direction of the sound and his eyes squinted in the darkness. He then stood up from his chair and walked a few feet, listening while peering into the shadows. He heard a soft hiss, and then a dark form blasted out of the bushes and sprinted for him, screaming a feral growl. The gate sentry yelped in fear and then turned and ran for a small guard shack, the hisser rapidly closing the distance behind him. He ran into the shack and then slammed the door shut, turning the bolt on the door to seal the monster out. The hisser didn’t slow down and didn’t even bother with the door but made its own as it jumped into the pane of glass that made up the window of the guard shack and blasted through it, covering the now screaming sentry in glass.

The shack shimmied and shook violently as the feral screams of the hisser and its struggling victim belted out into the immediate area and in the struggle, a button was hit. The gate began to groan and squeak and then it rattled open, the mass of dead tumbling over each other. Their moans picked up in intensity, calling to those that surrounded the zoo. Several hissers nearby, hearing the excited moans of the other dead that indicated food was imminent, turned and started bounding their way in the direction of the now open gate as the dead began to slowly spread out around the zoo, hunting for victims.

** *

Gunny Raines and the LT were standing in front of a group of about 70 people who had come over the course of the evening to say they wished to leave the Zoo. He apprised them of the situation and explained to them that they only had enough room for so many, and women and children had priority over anyone else.

Almost all the mothers in the zoo had chosen to leave and brought their children with them. They were going to be loaded into the shuttle buses. One of the men living in the zoo, a former truck driver, was tapped to drive the truck which would contain other survivors and whatever supplies could be gathered.

The remaining men who had volunteered to go were going to load up in the backs of the pickup trucks and be armed with whatever hand weapons could be found. These plans and other discussions were being had when the door to the vehicle bay burst open and Dr. Wright appeared with about ten of her Ohio State kids carrying shotguns and hunting rifles. They ran in and quickly surrounded the Gunny and the LT and Sgt. Loomis. The rest of the LT and Raines’ men were unarmed and spread out and relaxing when the coup became reality. No one was near a weapon, so they placed their hands in the air.

Karl marched at Dr. Wright in anger, pointing his finger at her as he came closer. “Dr. Wright! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” he said in indignant anger.

“Stopping a revolution.” she stated plainly and raised the .380 and shot Karl right between the eyes. The women and children in the place screamed and the crowd broke in terror and ran for the exits. They streamed out as Karl’s body fell backward to the cement of the vehicle bay, spreading crimson out onto the floor and after a moment only the shrew, her stooges and the visitors remained in the bay.

She approached the LT and spit in his face. “YOU PIGS! You almost ruined it all! You thought I would let you destroy my city? You knuckle dragging Neanderthals could never understand the noble work that is being done here! I thought that maybe that putz Humbacher would understand but he turned out to be a coward and shill just like you. I cannot have such swine fouling up my space!” she yelled at him. She then stepped back from the LT as the men were all lined up against the wall of the garage and her petty goon squad of brainwashed youth took their positions to become the first executioners of her new society.

Suddenly a heavy bolt was thrown back and the sound echoed throughout the garage and she turned her head to see Lids standing on top of the M-60 with the massive .50 cal on the pedestal pointed at her. She turned white and then spun around to face the woman on the machine gun.

“You!” Dr. Wright spat.

“Damn straight bitch!” cursed Lids and then the .50 spat flame. One round that blew Dr. Wright in half. The noise was absolutely deafening and it echoed for many seconds around the building. When the echo had died, Dr. Wright was nothing but two parts lying together in a pile in a massive pool of blood. Her goon squad of kids dropped their weapons without a word and ran out the side door.

“I wondered where the hell you wandered off to!” the LT shouted at Lids and she smiled. That was when they heard the first terrible screams outside the garage as a crowd of dead flowed out of the darkness to envelop the frightened people who were standing just outside the vehicle bay. The moans of the dead mixed with the blood curdling cries of the people told the entire story. It was time to leave. But first they had to find the First Daughters.

Several people were screaming terrible, primal howls as they were being consumed by spread out crowds of undead when the side door flew open and the crack of gunfire echoed throughout the zoo and deaders began to hit the pavement. The soldiers and militiamen burst from the door and began taking down the dead in expert fashion. Each one was a seasoned pro and they dispatched the dead so quickly and efficiently they cleared the immediate area in a few moments. The moans and cries of the dead and awful screams of people being pursued, caught and eaten alive were echoing all around them throughout the zoo.

One of Dr. Wrights goon kids sprinted by screaming in terror, a hisser hot on his tail. The LT lifted his rifle and took just enough lead and pulled the trigger, tossing the hisser off its feet as the bullet caught it in the skull and it hit the ground and slid to an abrupt stop, face down.

The Gunny reached out and clothes lined the kid as he tried to run by, stopping the kid in his tracks and dropping him to the ground. He then reached down and picked the dazed kid up off the ground and held him by the scruff of his jacket. He leaned in close and growled at the kid “Unless you want me to feed you to these things I would suggest you tell me where Dr. Wright put the girls.” The kid, already white with fear turned even paler and simply pointed in the direction of the living quarters. Raines released the kid and he immediately ran off into the darkness.

The Gunny and LT led the way as they quickly trotted the several hundred yards to the living area taking down a few dead that stumbled along the road aimlessly. When they arrived what greeted them was a scene so awful that none of the men could believe it. The entire parking area was covered in thick pools of blood. Clumps of dead were everywhere, growling at each other and pulling at the entrails of victims that lay scattered by the dozen around the lot some still alive and screaming, even struggling weakly as the knots of dead men and women consumed them. The creatures were slicked head to toe with fresh blood and seemed to delight in rolling and playing in the guts and gore of these unfortunate souls.

The men took action instantly and in another brutal and efficient operation cleared the parking lot of the dead with methodical timing. Cutting their way past them to the door of the living area, they knocked loudly at the locked door and called out for it to be opened. It was opened and the men all filed in quickly and the door shut and locked tight and the Gunny looked around and noticed there were 30 very frightened people standing around the door. Most of them were from the group of women and children that had escaped from the almost-execution. The two First Daughters were here as well. They were sitting off to one side clutching each other.

Gunny Raines spoke up to the crowd “Listen folks, shit’s hit the fan out there. This place is done for. Now, we’re going to make our way back to the vehicle garage with as many people as we can gather and get the hell out of here. I want everyone to form up in the middle of the ring the men will form and you listen to me. If I say run, run. If say stop, stop. If you follow directions, you might just make it out of here alive. The alternative…” and the Gunny just let the silence hang there before the frightened crowd nodded in agreement.

“Okay, what do you say we get out of here LT?” the Gunny said.

“Damn straight gunny! Okay men! Form up, defense ring formation, let’s get the civvies home!” and a loud hooah erupted from the men and they filed out the door and formed up in the lot. They then proceeded to move at a brisk walking pace across the lot and onto the road that led back to the maintenance garage.

They were halfway there when a couple hissers, trailed by a huge pack of regular dead came bounding up the roadway. The Gunny shouted for the men to form a skirmish line in front of the crowd. The people in the crowd whined in fear and some in the back began to back away as if to head back to the living quarters. The Gunny shouted for them to follow orders and stay where they were. The Gunny was terrified at losing control of this crowd that had grown to almost fifty people and if they panicked and ran like a herd of cattle, they would all be killed.

Suddenly, a 450 pound mass of screaming black and silver fur came roaring out of the bushes next the crowd. The women in the group screamed out in terror as Kang, smelling the dead, had come out in a rage. He flew past, running on his knuckles and hind legs, his mouth wide open presenting his fangs and screaming a primal roar none of the people had ever heard before. Kang stood up on two legs between the crowd of terrified civilians and the group of dead and beat against his chest wildly. It sounded like two wooden mallets being beat on a hollow log and it echoed across the zoo. The hissers felt absolutely no intimidation from this display of natural strength from their potential meal, and so they charged at Kang, hissing wildly. The first one leaped into the air and Kang caught it in a massive bear hug, enveloping the emaciated deader in his long and powerful arms and squeezed. The crack of bones was heard and then Kang, roaring like the primal beast he was reached down with those nasty canine teeth and took a huge chunk out of the neck of the hisser effectively decapitating it. He dropped its limp body to the ground as the other hisser raced within reach.

His massive, hairy arm shot out like a piston and snatched the hisser by the throat. It instantly stopped hissing as Kang, with the ease that one would squeeze a ball of cotton crushed the creature’s windpipe and snapped its neck. He then lifted it off its feet and grabbing one of its arms by the elbow screamed out and pulled. With a snap, crackle, pop and a tearing sound the arm came free from the hisser and Kang then pile drove the corpse into the ground in anger. The wet slap of its body sounding out as it was choke slammed into the pavement several times before being thrown carelessly to the side.

Kang ran forward on two legs, pounding on his chest and roaring before dropping to all fours and charging sideways at the pack of undead in front of him. Using his muscled bulk like a battering ram he rolled through the crowd of deaders with the ease of a bowling ball hitting a strike. Like pins the deaders were scattered through the air and on the ground. Then like a machine Kang went to work systematically dismembering the dead within reach. He reached down and grabbed one unfortunate deader by the ankle and lifted it up off the ground and then slapped its limp form against the pavement breaking its neck and then using it as a club to beat several other deaders, sweeping them aside into the bushes before dropping the now useless and misshapen body to the ground.

He spun around and around within the crowd of deaders, wild with screams and literally tore the crowd to pieces with his fangs and overwhelming strength so quickly that the Gunny was reminded of the Tasmanian Devil from the Looney Toons. Body parts flew in all directions, heads, arms, torsos, legs. Like a blender Kang worked his way over the crowd, leaving nothing in his wake but a pile of twitching moaning torsos, and scattered arms and legs laying around. He then screamed, beat on his chest and fled into the darkness down the road on all fours to continue the hunt.

“There’s our chance! Move people!” The LT shouted and the crowd began moving as quickly as possible while still staying organized down the road. They heard Kang roar again in abject rage and in a moment came upon him as he finished off a hisser that had been foolish enough to charge him. He had it pinned on the ground and was jumping up and down on its head, smashing it like a watermelon and screaming with anger before continuing on down the road leaving a thin twitching body laying out in the road with a red, chunky streak being all that remained of its head. The people followed a trail of body parts left behind by the enraged Gorilla as it worked its way down the road, dismembering in seconds whatever dead happened to be within his sight.

They finally reached the vehicle garage and Kang continued running past and disappeared into the darkness where he was heard crashing through the underbrush howling out and the moans of the dead answered in response before thrashing and crashing within the bushes told the tale of what Kang was doing to the dead within the trees that surrounded the road. The crowd of people used the distraction of the wildly fighting Gorilla to make it to safety inside the vehicle bay.

Since the crowd of people was smaller than planned, it was decided that the best way would be load everyone up in the two shuttle buses and have them ride behind the M-60 as it plowed their way to freedom and safety far outside the city. The rest, all men, would ride on the outside of the tank and the Stryker and try to fend off the worst of the hissers and deaders.

The People, frightened to the point of simple herd instinct, were literally herded into the buses where they took a seat. Frightened children clutched their mothers in desperate fear and the poor women themselves were torn with terror. Lids and Deadhead Ned mounted up into the Stryker. The LT called out. “Thompson, Garcia.” And the two men ran forward and saluted the LT. “Thompson, you were Armor before you were Airborne, right?” Thompson answered with hooah.

“Okay, you two take the tank, Thompson on the wheel, Garcia on the gun, let’s get rolling.” And the men saluted quickly and ran to the M-60 and began climbing inside and starting it up. Engines roared to life and headlights came on. The huge corrugated garage doors were rocking and back and forth and the moans of dead on the other side could be heard. They were scratching and pounding on the metal doors. One of the men ran over to a button console on the wall and pushed the button and the doors began to slowly lift.

As the doors slowly rose, the legs of a mass of dead could be seen at first and then as the door rose higher their true mass became visible in the bright headlights. There were hundreds, and the dead for a moment seemed to be dazzled by all the headlights shining in their faces. They sort of stared, dumbstruck for a moment like deer on a dark country highway. Then the world exploded in a wall of gunfire and deaders suddenly disappeared in puffs of black mist. The tank rolled forward into the crowd, Garcia hanging halfway out of the commander’s hatch, blasting away with the .50 at everything around him and clearing a huge slick path through the crowd.

The buses pulled out next following slowly behind the tank as it crushed over everything in its path, rotated to the right and continued down the service road towards the main gate. The Stryker pulled out last, men clinging to the top of it, shooting off to the sides at the few dead that remained in the area. The Tank thundered along and turned towards the main gate. The gate was packed with a steady stream of dead flowing in from the street. The tank engine roared as Thompson hit the gas and the tank belched smoke and then tore into the crowd. The dead were caught beneath the treads of the tank and smashed to a sick pulp, the entire time Garcia is hooting and firing wildly with the .50 cal. The caravan turned left out of the gate and continued down the street, crushing over the packs of dead that happened to be in the way and disappeared into the darkness, leaving the dead behind to explore the zoo.

Several hours later the LT was on a battered HAM radio set with National Command Authority in Benny’s bunker like house. He identified himself with a special code, and was transferred directly to the Presidential Offices in Aspen.

“Please hold for the President, Lieutenant.” came back from the communications officer. After a moment a voice was heard.

“Lieutenant Volker?”

“Yes Mr. President.”

“I understand you have information to report?”

“Yes sir. You’re daughters are safe. We recovered them along with about fifty other survivors.”

“Thank God, and thank you as well Lieutenant. I understand you have some other information?”

The LT took the next few minutes to fill the President in on the situation. The man, sitting thousands of miles away in an office in Aspen, listened with grave attention as the LT discussed the hissers and the danger of their spreading.

“What is it exactly you recommend I do Lieutenant?” said the President, wanting to be sure he heard properly.

“I recommend that you authorize for Columbus to be immediately and permanently sterilized, sir.” The LT came back

The President nodded. “Well, color me skeptical Lieutenant, but you must understand my reluctance to detonate a thermonuclear weapon over an American city, even one infected by the dead.”

“Mr. President, There are people scattered across this entire State, entire country. Millions of them who are living in isolated communities that are still surviving. If these things spread, it’ll be even worse than the first time. This needs to happen Mr. President.” the LT said with deadpan seriousness.

“Very well Lieutenant, I’ll let you know my decision one way or another within 12 hours.” The President said.

“Yes Sir.”

The President hung up the phone and stared out at the idyllic, snow-capped peaks through the window to his office, then picked up the phone.

***

Kang sat on a thick limb of a large oak tree somewhere in the Zoo. His fur was caked in black slime from a night of tearing bodies apart. He was exhausted, bleeding, and dying. Though he was immune to Factor Z, his body was not immune to exhaustion and stress. His heart was giving out, and slowly winding to a stop. He had climbed into the tree to get away from the grasping hands of hundreds of undead which collected around the tree in which he sat. He was too exhausted now to even utter a growl. He just looked around at the massive crowd as it swayed back and forth beneath him, reaching up and calling for his primate flesh.

A sharp burning sensation ran through his chest, spreading through his arms. His breathing became slower and slower. Suddenly, a loud roar was heard overhead and he looked up as an F-111 shot right over him at full afterburner, before turning for the sky. It rose, higher and higher and higher and Kang’s eyes followed it as it zoomed into the clear blue sky. Then, a shiny object seemed to come free from the plane after which it turned onto its back and disappeared in the direction it had come.

Kang’s eyes slowly closed, his breathing stopped and then he went limp and tumbled from the branch, landing with a loud thud onto the mass of dead below, crushing many beneath his bulk. As the crowd surged in to finally pick the huge carcass clean, a blinding flash of white hot light rolled over the crowd vaporizing it, and everything around it for miles.

The End

THE SOURCE OF OUR TRADITIONS by Jay Smith

NIGHT OF THE FROZEN ELF by Richard S. Crawford

SATAN CLAUS by Tom Hamilton

HOME FOR THE HORROR DAYS by E. F. Schraeder

I rationalize my serial theft from the quiet crypts of civilization by imagining myself as the inheritor of all those now dust. Perhaps not me, an old man, a relic, but Ferlita, at least. It is she who stands some chance of seeing our species coming back from the brink, she the one who may lead us back into the light.

The pattern of larceny, once begun, grows easier with repetition. The Kinneys, strange as we were, earned what we took, and were proud of standing on our own two feet. Aside from our trophies, we hated to borrow, rejected help, and bought only those things which we couldn’t gain by direct action. My primary action now is to think of things I can rob from the community chest and ways I can use those items to prosecute a war perhaps only myself and Ferlita have formally declared.

No matter. The extremity of the battles we face must take its toll, and even as we speak for those beyond the veil, we are ourselves diminished. We write small changes on the walls of this this quiet world, and quickly are used down to the nub. Useless soliloquies on my part change nothing, my efforts to make sense of things larger than myself always doomed to end with a series of question marks and frustrated doodles upon the page.

Ferlita comes to me as I sit in the midst of the yard sale pile of bits and pieces I’ve drawn together, looking at the thumb of my left hand, where I’ve lost the nail at last, and now simply have an ugly darkness of soft flesh. I can’t remember how long it’s been that way, or what happened in the first place.

“Have you got a plan, Mr. Kinney, or has your little rubber band snapped?”  She kicks a big plastic bag full of packing peanuts, twirling a road flare between her fingers.

“There’s a plan in the formative stages.”

“I used to have my homework in, like, the formative stages. Never seemed to get any credit for it.”

“You’re a wiseacre some times, kid. Not being Conan or somesuch, it takes an old man a few swings at the ball before he hits one solid.”

“So you’re just gathering up a whole lot of random junk and hoping something’ll come to you?”  She softens her words by shimmying up on the camp table next to me and leaning her head against my arm.

“No, I’ve got the basics down. I just need to ask you a few things before I’m sure.”

“Like what?”  I both admire and abhor the look in her brown eyes. She is what she must be, but I can’t excuse a world in which a little girl has to be so hard, so young.

“Can you ride a bike?”

She nods.

“Riding fast, with stops and starts, and for up to three or four miles?”

“I used to ride all day. No problem.”

“What about your arm?  Can you throw?” I ask her.

She gives me a disgusted look. “Like softball?

“Sure. Like that.”

“Si. Claro.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. One more thing. If I don’t…if I’m not around anymore, are you going to be able to lay low and survive?”

A sudden pain crosses her eyes, but she clamps down hard on it and it turns inward, into places I can’t see. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

“I don’t either, but I have to know that you’ll be able take care of yourself. I’ll teach you everything I can while we’re getting ready, but plans fail, things fall apart, and I need to know that you won’t…do anything hasty if I’m not around.”  I find that it’s hard to get the words out.

“I’ll be careful. I can hide. I can find food. I can go back to how it was if I have to. I don’t want…”  She turns away, putting her small fists against her face. Her breathing hitches, just once. The rest of it is controlled, silent. I can do nothing but put my hand against her spine and clench my teeth. There’s no one to curse, no easy target for my anger.

“Whatever happens,” she says, turned from me, “I don’t want to leave any of them—the smart ones—behind. The super muertos have to go down.”

*****

I haven’t ridden a bike for some embarrassing number of years. Still, there’s two rules I know, or perhaps just made up. One: you don’t ask your troops to do things you won’t do yourself. Pretty sure that’s some rough paraphrase of a real maxim. The second: you assess your enemy’s level of readiness, their response to someone encroaching on their territory. For me, that involves a bike ride.

The pain in my thighs and the aching in my old knees humanizes everything. Still, I’m alive to ache. The bike shorts I found to go along with the bike, a Cannondale with fat tires and more gears than I’ve ever seen, are constrictive, but given the cruel dimensions of the seat, it’s probably a good idea. Just because my wedding tackle’s old and likely without any rational usage, that doesn’t mean that the nerves have died down there.

Bicyling and .45s in a shoulder holster were not meant to converge, as concepts, I don’t think. I can’t find a comfortable posture or adjustment, and finally give in to the idea that the ridge of the magazine will sometimes clip me in the ribs. If I’m not careful, the hammer will get me on the back of the arm. Clumsy as my old body is, I’m often pretty sketchy on “careful”.

Cavendish Petrochemical Labs sits alongside a newly-paved road, the deep blackness and sweet tar smell still cooking up from the surface as the sun sits high in a sky devoid of clouds. There’s high chain-link all the way around the facility, which looks like it must be several acres in total. There’s a big parking lot behind a wheeled gate. The building’s blocky and steel sided. At least ten or twelve small exhaust stacks rise from the rear part of the structure.

Gate standing open and parking lot mostly filled with cars, I guess that a shift was in progress at the time the Flashover hit. This shift, for reasons I don’t pretend I can grasp, went muerto at an astronomically higher rate that the norm. That norm, guessed only through my own small calculations, was something like one or two percent. Not the Cavendish employees. It had to have been way higher. Maybe everyone.

I pedal slow, dawdling to see if there’s going to be any attempt to impede my progress. Or gnaw my shin bones, like the muertos do. My surmise that they use this place as their base camp is just that—a surmise. A groundless guess on my part. There could be…

Nope, I’m right after all. Five, six, shit, maybe ten super muertos explode from the cover of a barberry hedge and start sprinting to catch me.

I think about pulling my .45 and trying to fire over my shoulder, but just pulling one hand from the bars makes the bike veer dangerously. I feel the smooth track of the new pavement degenerate at the edge of the road, the sandy shoulder grasping at the fat tires and trying to pull the bars out of my remaining hand.

To hell with this. I put my other hand on the bars and get my course righted. I pedal for all I’m worth. The way the switchgear works is still a mystery to me, but I try for a higher gear.

“Balls,” I whisper. I’ve got a lower gear now, so that my legs flail around to nearly no purpose. I’m slowing down. I can hear the muertos’ feet slapping against the pavement. They’re closing in.

Heart straining close to redline, I push the switchgear the other way, and the chain hops up onto the big front sprocket. The sudden resistance shocks me up to the hip bone, the speed of my leg’s rotation quartering in an instant. I stand up off the seat like I’ve seen the Tour de France riders do and go for it.

My heart’s hitting so fast that half my vision’s filled with snowflakes and colored fire, but I don’t quit. A wild tendril of humor goes through my mind, imagining them finding me lying at the side of road, heart exploded like a doped horse’s, my flesh already cooling before they can lay a tooth upon it.

I don’t have enough breath to laugh, but I go on. It seems as if a gulf of a thousand years is breached before their footfalls fade away behind me, before I’m safe.

I pull to the side and, devoid of grace or care, fall against the weedy downslope, back flat against the ground, breathing like a bellows. It takes my heart the better part of a half hour to finally approximate its usual cadence.

“So. That’s dangerous,” I reflect, before crawling back to the bike and forcing my body, now in full revolt, to get back on. It takes me nearly two hours to get back to the Suburban, and by that time, one of my calves is in such a fierce cramp that tears are gathering in my eyes.

“How’d it go?” Ferlita asks.

I put my palms against the rear hatch of the Suburban and try to work the knots out of my legs. My clothes are soaked with sweat, my brain foggy and inert. “One problem with my plan, honey.”

“What’s that, Mr. Kinney?”  She hands me a bottle of water, perching on the rusty back bumper.

“It’s too risky. On a bike, anyway. Way too risky. It’s stupid.”

“Tell me what happened, huh?  I’ll decide if I can do it.”

“You’re, what?  Ten?”

“Eleven. I’m just little. And we’re partners. Tell me.”

I do. She grins.

“What?” I ask.

“We can use this. We can totally use this,” she tells me. After a minute, I’m smiling, too.

*****

Enthusiasm turns to trepidation as we churn closer to the actual risk. Bold plans look great on paper, sound great as they arc across the still, safe air of conception. Putting them into practice…that’s something else altogether.

I pace in front of the Suburban, suffering doubts, kicking at the insides of my ribcage with an angry heart. Was half a mile too far?  How fast can Ferlita pedal?  Will they chase her that far?  What if there are others, both before and behind her?

Too many questions. Too much time in which to ask them. I’ve checked my M-14 and its respective magazines of ammunition a dozen times. I’ve checked how my .45 sits in its holster an equal number of times. I’ve done everything but worry about having forgotten to turn off the burners on the gas range at home. If there was a sink nearby, I’d be washing my hands like those folks with mental problems, back when that sort of thing seemed like a bad problem to have.

Then I see her, bent down hard over the bars of her small frame ten-speed, trailing a half dozen running muertos. I can see her teeth, her face filled with an mean little grimace as she makes herself small, helping me get an angle for my shot.

The M-14′s butt plate hits my shoulder and I take aim. The peep sight fills with the snarling face of the lead muerto. Crazy, but they seem to grow more…evilly aware every time I see one. I time the bob and rush of his gait and squeeze the trigger. My shoulder is till tender from my adventures with the Weatherby, but I continue to fire for effect on the muertos.

After three fall and other is spun and deposited on the tarmac with his left arm foreshortened at the elbow, the others leap from the road surface and into the brushy forest.

“What I wouldn’t give…” I begin, but I won’t finish wishing for the simpleton muertos. I knew what we were facing when I came here. It’s them we’re concerned about.

I catch Ferlita’s bars to help her get to a stop, throwing her bike into the back of the Suburban. The action causes cramps to ripple across the small muscles of my torso and lock up one calf muscle. She leaps into the car as I load in the M-14, still trailing vapor from its open slide.

“Mr. Kinney!” Ferlita yells. There’s a sharp, panicked edge to her voice.

I fall backward into the back seat’s footwell, drawing the .45. One of the super muertos had been jogging through the woods, coming around for a flanking rush. He’s right on me. The sound of the Colt is like the end of the world inside the cabin of the truck, but it reduces the left side of the rushing zombie’s head to pink-red pulp. His momentum isn’t checked, and he hits the open aperture, thumping atop me in a bloody, reeking mass of dead flesh.

Something hits the other side of the Suburban. I can’t get up, but I start pushing the terminated flesh with my free hand. Ferlita chirps a curse and I feel her move violently enough to rock the Suburban. I look up, and I see two muertos hammering at the side of the vehicle.

Ferlita’s first shot blows out the passenger side window, and I see her hang her off hand out the ragged opening, pumping shots into the other muertos until the Beretta’s slide locks, barrel exposed and grinning empty.

They’re down. I can’t see them from my prone position. I struggle to extricate myself from the still zombie’s unwanted embrace and barely manage to climb into the driver’s seat. I fire the engine and we vacate the scene in a wash of half-burned gasoline and tire smoke. My leg cramp has grown worse, and I’m shaking all over like someone with a high fever, but all I can do is put my foot against the dead space on the firewall and grit my teeth.

“Shit. That was a piece of cake,” Ferlita says. She’s digging at her ears, trying to get the ringing to go away, I imagine.

I laugh. It sounds like the barking of a jackal coming up from a buried drainage pipe.

*****

We harnessed fire, and that made us as gods on the earth. I jockey a fifty gallon drum of gasoline and plastic packing peanuts onto the huge flatbed trailer, that last of twelve that I was able to fill from the nearby wells. Frankly, the last one I can wrestle onto the trailer. Ferlita hands me up a loop of poly rope a few hundred feet long. I throw a big bowline-on-a-bite around one drum and then pace around and around the whole group until I’m out of line. I hitch the rope hard, and know that it’ll stay, bumps or no. In amongst the fifties, I’ve got three ninety pound propane cylinders, each with an eight inch red dot of paint. Come twilight, Cavendish Petrochemicals is going to have a big problem. That’s my prediction.

I want to ask Ferlita if she’s sure, but she’d just glare at me. She’s said she can do it, and so she’ll do it. That’s her. We’ve got a little car that was still in running order at the dealership. One of those Toyotas that runs on batteries sometimes. It’s quiet, and she can put the seat close enough to reach the pedals. It should work. If it won’t, it’ll be too late for us to lament. We’ll be food for the muertos.

We both get into the Toyota, Ferlita driving. It’s midday, and we crawl past the chemical plant at walking pace, waiting. I flex my hands, hoping that I’ve got enough speed to get this done. They don’t jump when they jumped the first two times. Are they gone?

No. They’re just learning. When the muertos do jump, it’s really close, and they’re coming from every direction.

“Hit it!” I yell.

Ferlita does, and two muertos get a taste of the Toyota’s bumpers. She’s a little shaky behind the wheel, but her nerve always holds. She’s my girl. My partner. We make a little distance on them, maybe three hundred yards, and I tell her to get it stopped.

With the squealing of the Toyota’s thin tires, we’re to a stop. I do my best to leap out, and she pops the hatchback. I hoist the makings of our distraction fire out of the back, my bones and muscles protesting to high heaven. Ferlita is in the center of the road, her Beretta held at rest, red ear muffs on her head.

Four five-gallon jugs of diesel, four VW engine blocks made out of magnesium. One twenty foot length of hemp rope, already soaked with fuel and ready to burn.

I push the rope through the handle of each of the Jerry cans, then into the top of the last one. I stretch it out, all the way out to the edge of the road.

“They’re coming,” I hear. I fish for my lighter and spin the flint. Sparks, but no fire. Again. Same thing happens. I try for a harder spin, and the metal sides of the Zippo squirt out of my hand, tumbling down the embankment at the roadside.

I leap downward, my feet slipping, my ankle twinging. I tackle the spot where the lighter has landed, wondering if I’ll be able to get out.

The sound of gunfire rips open the roof of the day. I force myself up, crawling back to the end of the fuse. I spin the flint sparker one more time, and the flame comes up. I touch it to the fuse, and the bright fire of diesel dances up the fuse fast as you like.

“It’s lit!” I yell.

Ferlita falls back to the Toyota’s door, reloading and spraying a whole clip at the oncoming muertos to check their progress. More than a few already carry some of her lead.

In the moment that we pile into the car, the whole tinder behind us goes up, red-gold flame leaping thirty feet into the air, singing the back of the Toyota, and scaring the hell out of us. We are moving, though, moving out of the conflagration and into the clear air.

“How long will it burn?” Ferlita asks, hands tight on the wheel.

“If the magnesium goes up, quite a while. If not, maybe an hour. Can’t tell. This is the sort of stuff they used to put you in jail for.”

As the view of the fire fades, we can just make out a crowd of muertos forming. Smarter, they may be. The allure of the flames affects them nonetheless.

We circle back to the old Suburban, using an access road through town and sucking up much of the time that our fire might burn.

“This is it. This is the big show,” I say as I get myself ready for it, as I prep my aching body to make the surge into the truck again.

“It’s all or nothing,” Ferlita says back. She puts her arm around my waist and gives me a short squeeze.

I creak my way into the Suburban, now clean of all my important belongings, ready for its road of glory at last.

“Mr. Kinney?”  Ferlita’s standing by the Toyota, a Prius, she’s informed me. For a moment, I miss the wonderful names cars used to have. Imperial. Impala. Falcon. Those were names.

“What is it, sweetie?”

“I…” her face quirks.

“Me too. Me too.”  I pull out, the Suburban working hard to get the heavy trailer moving. She pulls in behind me. I don’t look back at her, for fear of what I’ll see, what I’ll feel.

The smoke from our distraction fire is still coming up in the distance. We roll to a stop at the open gate before Cavendish. Someone has been left to guard the fort, and they appear next to the Suburban. The window’s open, and I fire the big Ruger right into the muerto’s face. The flame front from the pistol soaks the thing’s head, the sudden hit of a high velocity shell cracking the skull like  a dropped pumpkin. It folds up, and I pop the door. Ferlita’s already out, already holding the M1 Carbine that I’ve recovered and made functional again. She levels the little rifle on the other two muertos and three reports end their career on the far side of dead.

I brace the dowel rod against the seat and the old engine roars. I reach up, dropping the transmission into gear and getting out of the way. The Suburban’s tires bark and scrabble at the tarmac, the rear end hopping under the strain, but it gets the heavy trailer moving, and it assumes its collision course with the chemical plant.

“Always was a great truck,” I whisper, as I walk back to the Prius. I get the big Weatherby out of the back as the mighty crash transpires behind me. As I look back, the Suburban is doors-deep in the front of the building, still straining and roaring to punch further, still in frantic, heroic action.

I level the Weatherby on one of the big propane cylinders. The trailer didn’t flip, which was my biggest worry. I can still see a red dot. I think that I should say something prophetic, something clever, at least, but I can think of nothing. I press the trigger. The heat and pressure of the explosion is vast and profound at thirty yards, the flames leaping a hundred feet in the air, a series of smaller explosions blending together like the cycles of a massive engine.

Ferlita goes into the passenger seat, and I rack the driver’s seat back to the rear of the tracks. I drive the little car roughly, and it responds as best it can. I drive in the opposite direction of our distraction fire for about fifty yards, then stop.

We take up our positions on either side of the little car, her with the M1 Carbine and me with my M14. As the supermuertos stream down the road, we fire until our magazines are spent. Those we don’t kill, we maim. Those that we don’t maim, we force into cover and pin down.

In the Prius, we flee the scene before our victory becomes failure. Perhaps it is my imagination, but I could swear I see knife boy, tiny in the rearview, shaking a long blade in wordless rage. We have not destroyed them all, but we have struck a mighty blow. The living may be relics of a time now passed, no more than violent heirlooms, but we somehow contrive to remain. In all our noise and fury, in all the desperate plans and destructive stratagems, we are not yet gone from the brow of the earth.

Epilogue:

Hi. This is Ferlita Sanchez writing this now. I just wanna say that I’m not writing this alone. I have help. There’s someone. Well, I’m going to get to that in a minute. I want to tell you that, in the movies, back when there were movies, they would always stop where Mr. Kinney did. You stop after the good guys win. The music plays and everybody’s name rolls down the screen. You walk out and everything’s sweet. So. If you want it to be that way, you gotta (said it like that on purpose) stop now. I’m serious. The movie’s over. All of Mr. Kinney’s pretty words are done. It’s just my part of the story now, and I don’t have any pretty words. So stop now. Don’t read what I am writing. If you keep on going, I warned you. I told you about it.

*****

Mr. Kinney and me drove a little while after the mess at the plant. I don’t think we was even going in the right direction. We just drove. I wasn’t even that scared right then, but I got the shakes real bad. I didn’t want to, and I wasn’t all sad, but I started crying. I thought of all the cheesy Mexican pop songs they used to play at the beautician shop in Yuma. The guys had always done their women wrong, but they were begging them not to cry. It seemed like all the songs were like that. I imagined a really nice looking boy singing for me not to cry in Spanish, but it didn’t do any good. I kept on. Mr. Kinney just stared ahead and drove, his eyes somewhere far out there. I stopped crying, then got hungry, then got real tired and went to sleep. I don’t know when we finally got back to the bowling alley. Mr. Kinney carried me in, I guess.

A few days went by. We stayed pretty cooped up, since we thought that any of the muertos that were still out there might try something. I started to get real good at bowling. And making grilled cheese sandwiches. We didn’t talk much. It seemed like we’d won, and we didn’t trust it. Mr. Kinney said that he expected Knife Boy, the lead muerto, to come back at us all knuckles. He expected…reprisals…I think that was the word.

I couldn’t do much to make things different. I was having a tough time sleeping, and when I did, I was having a lot of dreams that made me feel like I’d never be able to breathe normal again. We were both all messed up. I started missing my Mom like anything, and my little cousin Raul, and my friend Sammi. All the people that were gone. The people that were just dust. When I was all alone, and it was just the tire spray bottle and the muertos, it was different. With Mr. Kinney, and what we’d done, and thinking about actually having some kind of life again, I was maybe wanting too much. I opened the doors, and all the bad stuff from the world going to hell came in, and I was not dealing.

The only thing that helped was reading. It took me out of it a little. I read these books about this guy who was like a blacksmith, and the stuff he would make was wicked powerful. But man, this dude had some bad luck. He was always getting himself into the shit. If he did one bad thing all year, this girl he was digging would be there, and she would leave him because of it. When I was worrying about these books, it went away a little. It wasn’t so bad.

When there was nothing decent to eat left at the bowling alley, we finally knew we were going to have to take our chances. Hanging around was just making it worse, anyhow. When you’re all messed up inside, you want to move. At least when you’re doing something, you can fool yourself a little. Hiding like a rat in a storm drain just lets you pick away at your own scabs.

We came out of the bowling alley like a SWAT team. We had every gun loaded, and we came out ready rock. My shoulder finally looked like it was supposed to again, and I was ready. Yeah, I got the shakes again thinking about it, but I went through the door, and we made it to the car. Nothing came out. We didn’t see anything.

It wasn’t until we got back to Mr. Kinney’s house that things got bad. He would have ways of making this part so you can see it happening, and have a lot to say about it. I just have to put what happened. Just doing that, and I’m having a hard time. You guys don’t know how long it’s taking me to write this stuff. It’s like you dig a hole in sand, and it just fills in, like you haven’t done anything but push the stuff around.

We got out of the car like we’d gotten to it. Cop show stuff, ready in case the muertos tried to jump us. Again, things looked clear. We got in, and maybe for the first time since blowing up the plant, we started to relax. I know that, somewhere inside my gut, I started to feel like everything was cool. That’s a feeling you need to get rid of, because it always lies.

It was after dark, hours later, and we were heating up beef stew out of cans. The propane that Mr. Kinney had piped in had just run out. The blue little tongues of fire went out, and he went to the back door. He turned to me and said he was just going to duck out and change it. I asked if he wanted me to cover him, but he said that we had to stop living scared at some point. He said it would just be a minute, because he had five cans hooked up to a common line, and he’d just have to turn a valve to get us working again.

And then he never came back. I heard him shout, then something big hit the side of the house hard enough that the pictures of the Kinney people fell to the floor, all the glass breaking up and coughing everywhere. I opened my mouth, and there was scream there inside, but I couldn’t get anything to come out. I reached, and the shotgun was there, because I promised myself that I wasn’t ever going to be more than three steps from the twenty gauge, ever. The back door burst in, and there was Knife Boy, and he had blood on him, and he was running full out at me, and I raised the shotgun and shot, and the booming sounds kept going until I couldn’t hear anything.

Mr. Kinney’s head wasn’t connected to his body anymore when I went to the door, pumping shells into the belly of the shotgun. I could see him looking at me, his eyes open and empty. I waited at the door for a long time, crying real hard, but straining to see, to make sure there weren’t any more. I dragged Knife Boy outside and shut the door. I found a hammer and nails, and I nailed the door shut. It’s still nailed shut now. It ain’t ever gonna open again. I went and climbed into Mr. Kinney’s bed. I lay there until morning. When I closed my eyes I saw him laughing. I saw him telling me some story about how you can switch crank shafts on an engine and make it bigger inside, somehow. Much as I didn’t want to, I saw him, dead and staring. Sleeping was pretty hard. Maybe it always will be now. I guess we’re closer to the dead when we sleep, and I’m not used to the company any more.

It took me all day to bury him, but Knife Boy burned easy when I poured a bunch of booze on him and lit him up. I took everything good and moved back into the bowling alley. I was alone there until Tiffany found me the next spring. It wasn’t until then that I came back to the house and found this story. Now it’s done, ready to be told.

Mr. Kinney taught me to shoot. He taught me to drive. He taught me how to run his big tape player. I guess maybe we taught each other about how to fight the muertos. He made me out to be something amazing, but I was just a kid. Things were tough, and I tried as hard as I could. It almost was enough.

I could have covered Mr. Kinney. The happy ending was right outside my reach, but I could have stretched for it. I didn’t. Mr. Kinney was a good man. I miss him more than anyone.

What music best describes to you the majestic horror of the fall of the world to the hordes? We’re not talking the hope of the few who survive, but the point at which evil reaches it zenith – what is Cthulu/a necromancer/the evil government scientists hearing in their head(s) when they realize their triumph? Feel free to submit a track or two in the comments.

I don’t know how they hone in on their game. The workings of zombies are too esoteric for me, but I can tell you that within their cold husks, there are, indeed, workings. I bring the Suburban to a halt and pop my door. I reach back into the back seat and bring out the M14, inserting a magazine and ramming it home.

“Doors closed, hands over ears, kiddo,” I tell Ferlita. She puts her small palms over her ears and bites down. I slide the muffs over my own battered ears and sight down toward the hollow in front of my own ancestral house. There are twelve zombies milling about, but recently aroused from their aimless shambling by the sound of my truck’s exhaust.

I flick the safety forward and set myself. My aim isn’t the steadiest, but it will have to do. They’re no more than fifty yards away now, moving forward in their staggering jog. These aren’t the new ones, the ones from the chemical plant. Just average Muertos, as Ferlita calls them. I let go at the first one. I don’t see him drop, because I’m doubled over, tears squeezing out of my eyes.

The recoil of a 7.62 NATO round isn’t overwhelming. It’s a good bump, but not a big deal. Unless you’ve got some broken ribs, that is. In that case, every shot is going to be an act of will, because you know how that grating, knifing pain will shoot through you when you press the trigger.

“Get it together, Kinney. Get it together,” I whisper. I fire again, flinching and missing altogether. I have twenty rounds with which to do the job. Miss many more times, and it might not get done. They’re no more than thirty yards away now, time eking away like dust through my fingers.

I bear down, shooting through the smeared vision and the pain. The world fills with thunder and muzzle flash. Muertos go down, some thrashing, some finally still. The last one falls mere feet from me, its slow blood dripping down the Suburban’s aluminum wheel and pooling beneath the aggressive tire tread. I feel as if I’ve been shaken by the hand of some malevolent giant, as if I’m some angry kid’s doll, and all the world’s frustrations have been taken out on my frail stuffing and old fabric. It’s only the rifle’s butt that keeps me from falling flat, and that accomplishes only allowing me a semi-graceful slump to my knees.

I’m crying, weeping silently in a quiet world that’s filled up with pain and broken hopes. Ferlita stands near me. I see her bottle of whitewall cleaner dangle at the edge of my vision. She says nothing for a moment, then reaches down to my shoulder holster and pulls free my .45. I see her feet disappear. I look up through the vagueness of my pain and despair. She holds the pistol with both hands, just like you see in the shows. She puts a bead on one of the zombies that’s struggling forward without use of its lower half. Nothing happens. She finds the safety. The pistol roars. The Muerto stops. For good.

I have a sudden, perfect remembrance of my own daughter, firing my friend Steve’s target pistol for the first time. She was about Ferlita’s age. Her smile had been so vibrant. She’d kept her best target for weeks, touching the holes closest to the bull’s eye with her thin fingers. All my recent food threatens to come up. I can’t watch as Ferlita puts paid to another of the zombies.

When she returns, the slide is caught back, the rounds all expended. Her little hand is bleeding from slide bite, but she says nothing, only cradling it with her left and waiting. I take the gun and somehow get up. The single remaining zombie gets its ticket punched for good with the front bumper of the Suburban. Ferlita helps me get to the house and sink into a battered Lay-Z-Boy. In the bright afternoon, the world becomes speckled like a bird’s egg, and I nearly pass out.

“That was fine work out there, Ferlita.”

She sits on the couch opposite me. “Are you okay?”

“Ribs aren’t feeling so great, but I’ll manage. I should find something to wrap them with while we’re here. How’s your hand?”

She looks down at the blood speckles on her brown skin. “Stings. That gun’s like catching a fastball.”

“You play softball?”

She nods. “I did, when there were other kids. I liked playing baseball better.”

“What position?”

“First base. I’ve got a good arm.”

*****

By the next morning, I feel good enough to get the snow blade installed on the Suburban. Using it, I push the zombies off the road and into a ditch nearby. I can’t quite hoist a fifty pound bag of quick lime, so Ferlita carries the stuff out to the open grave in a few buckets I have hanging around.

If I felt better, I’d just douse ‘em with a 1:1 mixture of gasoline and diesel and set ‘em to burn, but my house is in a low place between folds of the land, and it would fill with corpse smoke pretty quick. If you’ve ever smelled burning remains, you know what I mean. The sharp smell of the hair, the taste that lingers at the back of your mouth until you can’t remember when it wasn’t there. Anyway, with the new, improved Muertos around, I’m concerned about anything that’ll raise a smoke trail that big. Quicklime will at least keep the smell down some.

Later, we’re sitting at the long dining room table, bowls of bean soup and rice before us. The last of the venison jerky is in there. It’s big times in the post-human world, with two people at the same table and reasonably safe. It can’t last, and we both know it.

“Did you have kids?” Ferlita asks.

I nod. “A daughter. She’d be twenty-eight this August.”

“I bet you were a good dad, too.”

That hits me in the heart. I have to put down the spoonful of beans and breathe for a moment to get the tears to stay in place.

“I don’t know. I did as well as I knew how.”

“Did she still talk to you?  Did she come over on days other than holidays?”

I nod. “A few times a week. Most times, to see her mom, but she’d drop by my work once a week or so, just to say hi.”

Ferlita’s eyes grew wise in her young face. “Then you were a good dad. Good compared to mine, anyway.”

I open my mouth, but decide that it isn’t smart to pick off scabs I don’t have to. If she has something to tell me, she’ll do it when she’s ready. “Maybe so,” is all I say.

“How are your ribs?” she asks, thankfully changing the subject. “You were pretty bruised up.”  She grins. “And furry…like Bigfoot.”  She’d helped me get them wrapped the night before, and though I would have spared her the sight of an old man’s bare torso, it’s hard to minister to your own ribs.

“Hey, thanks. Good to know the Kinneys are about on the level with a forest monkey.”

Ferlita laughs, a sound I hadn’t expected to ever hear again, that simple, unrestrained laugh of a child. It somehow turns the moment bittersweet, and I catch myself wishing for things that can’t be, miracles that have yet to occur.

I think we both know it when we’ve violated some unspoken rule of the apocalypse, and the dinner table grows quiet for the rest of the meal. Even the clatter of the dishes seems muted as we clear away the spread and clean up.

I think of the disapproval of all the female influences in my life as I spread out a stained and oil-spotted towel that evening. Ferlita sits by me as I take down, clean, and reassemble the firearms I used on my recent foray. I explain to her how each one functions, which springs work against what leverage, and other random facts that come to me. It occurs to me that I’ve always been a bit of a minstrel, always spinning tales and keeping up long strands of conversation. I come to know how much I’ve missed those words being audible, and received by another human ear. I realize that I’ve been standing at the verge of a pit so deep and black that, no matter how much of my thoughts and words I throw into it, I can never hear anything hit bottom.

“Your family brought all of these home from the wars?” she asks.

“All except this one,” I say, pointing to the Ruger. “It’s more of a hunting revolver than a war weapon.”

“Is the gun I want a…war weapon?”

“We’ll have to see, Ferlita. I’m not sure if you’re talking about a Glock, a Beretta, or a Sig-Sauer. They’re all featured heavily on the television, or they were, before. I imagine that they’ve all been used in military service somewhere, though it’s the Beretta that our troops have used for many years.”

“Will they jolt my hand as much as yours?”

I shake my head. “Not likely. Those guns, at least the standard police issues, are usually 9mm or .40 Smith and Wesson. The pistol you fired was a .45 ACP. The loads I use have a bit of pop to them.”

Ferlita gets a faraway look in her eyes. “When do we go?”

I gesture to the window. “When it’s light.”

“What about after that?”

“I show you how to shoot, and then we’ll see.”  I can somehow tell that she’ll be okay, that she’ll skip right over the flinching and closing her eyes. Little Ferlita has ice water in her veins.

“I think we’ll have to see if those zombies with the…” she makes a all-over gesture.

“Jumpsuits?”

She nods. “Jumpsuits. We have to see if there are more. We have to get ‘em.”

“That’ll be dangerous,” I tell her.

She sits back in her chair. “We can’t let them wander around. They’re too…”

“I know. Too bad to tame, too numerous to ignore.”

The guns are arrayed on the table, the magazines loaded, the smell of gun oil and powder solvent sweet in the air. We walk into the dim light of the single bulb that burns in the living room. Between the meal and my tortured ribs, I’m having a hard time breathing. The three beers have helped a little, but not enough. I slump into the recliner again, letting loose an involuntary grunt as my torso muscles flex.

Ferlita wanders from place to place, looking at books, family photos, magazines, and all the other junk that I’ve been too…paralyzed to move. “Do you have any music?”

“I do. Have you ever seen a reel-to-reel tape deck?”

*****

It feels strange to simply walk into Hennigan’s Arms and Equipment, but it’s that easy. It was open at the time of the Flashover, and stayed that way. The scent of long-rotten food, probably someone’s lunch, lingers in the air. I prop the steel-barred door open with a box of clay pigeons to let the place air out.

“Wow,” Ferlita whispers. “Look at all of them.”

Hennigan’s has a full supply of every sort of gun, from the smallest .22 Derringer to a .50 caliber sniper rifle. Hunting rifles and shotguns line the walls. Handguns of all sorts lay on the blue felt below hardened glass. Ammunition occupies a whole side of the store, the colorful boxes like afterimages of all the country boys’ birthdays now forgotten.

“Maybe I should have a shotgun, too,” Ferlita tells me, walking forward, easily slipping behind the counter and running her fingers along all the finished wood and blued steel.

“Let’s find you a pistol first, Honey.”

She turns back to me, her eyes narrowing. She blows air out her nose and smiles after a moment.

“Not into pet names?”

She shrugs. “They’re okay. I just…”

I see that I’ve tripped on a painful memory. They abound. No one is whole, no one’s soul anything other than an old road sign after it’s been peppered with birdshot and .22 fire. “I’m sorry.”

Ferlita looks directly at me. “You can call me ‘Honey,’ Mr. Kinney.”

I set my teeth, my heart filling up with things I’d thought to be all the way gone. “Then you’d better call me Randall. Old as I am, I still think of ‘Mr. Kinney’ as being my father.”

Ferlita reaches down, picking up a ring of keys that must unlock the cabinets. She tries a few, finally hitting on the right one, and reaches in, pulling free a Beretta 92. “Found one.”

“That’s sort of big for your hand, but we can give it a go.”

“A war weapon?”

“Indeed. A war weapon.”

By the time we’re done shoplifting from the abandoned gun store, we’ve both got pump action shotguns, and we’ve stripped the place of ammunition in the calibers we use. I lament that .30 carbine is so sparse now, but Hennigan’s has several thousand rounds of .308, .45, and 9mm. I come back in just before we leave and purloin another Beretta 92 and some random supplies I might need down the line. Cleaning solutions, patches, a .30 caliber bore snake. It seems that I’ve broken through my initial squeamishness about stealing from the dead. They are all heirlooms now, taken from the great land of graves where we once existed.

*****

There is a shutdown paper mill twenty miles up the road. I intend to use the huge interior space to muffle the gunfire while I teach Ferlita how to use her new weapon. It’s far from my house, and we’ll only be there for an hour or two, so drawing Muertos to us isn’t a big concern. If they do come, we’ll be very heavily armed and deployed in a defensible hard fortification. It seems safe enough, though safety is always half illusion and half hope.

Ferlita’s eyes are bright, her hands moving nervously on her lap as we drive the distance. High speeds are no longer wise, even when you imagine that you know the road well. Beyond the stopped or crashed cars that were remainders from the sudden violence of the Flashover, which immolated drivers in an instant and left the cars without a pilot, there are also natural hazards. Trees fall across the road. Wind blows debris into the roadway.

In the short months since the bustle of humanity was muted, the animals have grown bold and unmindful of our creations. It is not at all uncommon to see wild horses, packs of dogs, or any native animal hunching on the road. Bears, specifically, have become very successful. They are adept at breaking into cars and houses for food. Feral pets have also provided them with an easy source of nourishment. Even the Muertos (I’m growing more and more fond of Ferlita’s terminology) are a potential meal. Even a black bear has little to fear from the average zombie. Once they associate a human shape with being both food and enemy, however, that requires that you tread carefully.

The Suburban runs shy on gas, and I’m forced to look for a gas station. I know which marks denote premium gas, and I carry a rig that lets me pull gas straight from the underground tanks. It’s just a hand crank, so it takes time, but it’s quiet and robust. Ferlita and I take turns cranking the pump, gradually filling both the truck’s normal tanks and a few auxiliary tanks on the back. We wash up, filch all the good canned and packaged food, and get back on our way.

*****

I’ve always found abandoned buildings to be at once wonderful and frightening. I don’t believe the sensation of walking into all that silent space has ever changed, not from the time I was standing only up to my father’s knee.

The paper mill, Quinland Paper, has been empty for nearly fifteen years. It squats at a slow bend in a river I cannot name, tan paint going to rust, pipes and ducts without purpose, stacks beginning to fall in on themselves. There were those I talked to that, for each place of industry that shut its gates and ceased to produce something, would have a vital, palpable pain shoot through them. I find that, though I had never thought too much about such things when I was younger, I now understand. The silence of a place where hard goods had been made, where people had coaxed valuable products out of the resources of the earth—those silences are like lingering deaths, every one a precursor to this immense death I walk through, and I wonder if it is hell, and if I am Virgil, showing Ferlita the way through the deepening circles of gloom.

Ferlita, within the horrors of her own mind perhaps, or simply content to suffer the silence without reflection, takes my hand and leads me further in. The gear we’ll need fills a duffel bag, and though the wounds to my face and ribs still ache and twinge, I am not so crippled by them as I was a few days ago. I can carry the weight of guns and shells without pain sweat popping against my skin.

Behind two sets of heavy doors, within the sanctum of the paper mill, Ferlita gets her crude training with weapons. She is a rare person, not prone to flinching at the press of her trigger finger. She watches carefully and quickly grasps how her Beretta operates. She is soon able to hit objects under eight inches across with good frequency.

“How come people in the shows are always pulling the slide-thingy back?” she asks.

“Because actors like something to do with their hands, and sound effects guys like the noise of the action taking a bullet into battery. That, and it’s not uncommon for the Hollywood guy who’s cutting the sequence together to have no clue about how a gun works.”

She gives me a thoughtful look, then puts a loaded magazine in the grip of her pistol, releases the slide, and takes aim. An empty soda can we brought in skitters across the floor.

After the Beretta, teaching her how to use the Mossberg 20 gauge is fairly simple. The recoil rocks her little shoulder, but the trials of the apocalypse have forged her into stern stuff. She doesn’t complain. She doesn’t even comment.

“Are you confident?  Can you use these weapons under duress?”

She scrunches up her brows. “Does that mean, like, when things get scary?”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

Ferlita pushes her lips together, hands me her shotgun, and leans against one of the steel columns that holds up the roof. “I figure I can do whatever I have to.”

“I think…”

The titanic sound of the mill’s heavy door giving way comes through clear, even with our hearing protection on.

“Duress?” she asks.

I nod, too intent on loading shells into the shotgun to make a sound. We’ll be under duress in a moment. It’ll be all around us.

*****

The hard rain falls on both the wicked and the just. We are not spared our trials upon this dusty earth, nor are we given reprieve because of what has been done or left undone. The mute horror of the Flashover reaches long, cold, grasping fingers into every crevice. Nothing remains untouched, no deed untainted by what has gone before. In this new conception of the earth, we must fight with all that we have to prove that we have not become outmoded, simply quaint and short-lived reminders of a time gone by.

I push little Ferlita behind me. She has the clip to her Beretta in hand, doing her best to press the 9mm shells in. Her index finger is smashed pale at the end, her eyes bright. The zombies are coming, and I have a strong feeling that they aren’t the normal muertos, but the souped-up version from the chemical plant. Normal zombies are stopped by steel doors. Knife-boy and his pals probably aren’t.

Everything moves slow, time dilated. I drop a 12 gauge shell, and it seems to take an eternity to hit the deck. The first door is already down, and it still had its metal deadbolt. This inner door won’t hold for more than a moment when they get to it.

“Don’t rush. Take clear shots. Aim for the head. If they get too close, you bolt. There’s got to be a way down to the river from here. You leave me, do you hear?”

Ferlita looks into my face and shakes her head. “Not leaving.”

“Don’t be muley. I get to die for you, if the time comes.”

“Uh-uh. If it gets bad, we both run, or we both stay.”

I see that she won’t be moved. Fierce, dark pride shoots through me. She has, simply and without the aid of a special creed, encompassed the warrior’s oath. To stand by a comrade, come what may. All of this explodes outward into my soul over the course of a single moment. “Okay. There ain’t much running in these old legs, though.”

She pushes home the filled magazine, works the slide, and engages the safety, tucking the pistol into her waistband. In a smooth, quick motion, she scoops up her 20 gauge and begins to load from the box of buckshot at her feet. “I don’t want to run anymore.”  The look on her face is calm, her eyes intent, her small teeth biting her lower lip.

The second door explodes inward, pulling the hinges free and hitting the raised metal stairs hard enough to slide half way across the catwalk. A zombie shoots the gap and I take him with the Mossberg. His head caves and he tumbles to the foot of the stairs with the wet sound of a bag full of broken melons. Jumpsuit. It’s one of the souped-up zombies. Not death proof, though.

“Get any of them that get to the bottom of the stairs, or if I have to reload.”

“Bottom of the stairs,” she shouts back as I open up at the next to rush through the door. I get him in the midsection and knock him down, but he’s a super-muerto, and that doesn’t settle their hash. Two more come after and I lose track of the injured one. Ferlita’s shotgun roars beside me. Neither of us are taken down. I can’t spare the sideways glance, but I’m sure she took care of her end.

The shotgun is hitting on empty in a moment, four jumpsuit muertos down. “Cover the door!”

Ferlita pounds her last few rounds of 20 gauge at the door as another muerto comes in hard and fast. The first misses, the second shot blows his foot off. He’ll be ankle biting from here on. Her Mossberg is exhausted and I hear her start taking shots with the 9mm, one per second, like I told her. My old hands fumble with the magnum shells for the 12 gauge, but I get the tube filled again just as the Beretta falls quiet.

“I couldn’t get the last one,” Ferlita shouts, the ear protectors and the sustained thunder of gunfire making our hearing indistinct. I turn to her, and she motions with her chin.

I get the shotgun to shoulder and back on target. Two Muertos have the metal door and are using it like a big shield. They’re most of the way down the stairs now, and another two are shooting the gap with the diversion.

“Catch!”  I throw the big gauge at Ferlita and pull the .45, falling two steps back to get a better angle.

My heart thundering, I make myself hold steady. If there was ever an important shot, it’s now. I take aim on the moving feet and ankles that are the only things I can target. Squeeze the trigger, Randall. Squeeze it easy and hit what you aim at.

I take my own advice. The door topples, the jig is up, and I hammer at the clever super-muertos with the last five rounds of hollow point. It’s enough.

Ferlita puts the big gauge to work, tearing into the two runners as they hit the stairs. They tumble down to the pitted concrete, coming still no more than ten feet from me. The ankle biter on the catwalk rears up and she relieves his shoulders of the weight of his head. I have enough time to really see the carnage, and wish that I had looked away. Even a muerto, even in the heat of battle, there are things that you’d rather not see too well.

I put the spare magazine into the .45 and hold it at the low ready, waiting. A minute goes by, though it seems an eon of echoing and fear and galloping heartbeat. I give back several steps, clearing Ferlita’s position, watching her as she puts the 12 gauge down and starts loading the 20. She winces as she moves her right arm, tears standing in her eyes. The big gauge was too much recoil for her, but she did what she needed to. Suddenly, I start to really believe that the human race might survive.

“That was extraordinary valor under fire, Honey.”

She grits her teeth and says nothing.

“How much ammo do we have left?”

“Just five shots for my…”

“20 gauge,” I fill in.

“20 gauge, yeah. Five shots. Ten more for the Beretta, and, um, three for your shotgun.”

I blow out breath. “Well, I hope they’re not waiting for us out there, huh?”

“Maybe we can circle around and see.”

I wipe my brow. My brain seems to be reeling, useless. Of course we should try to circle around. Ferlita, at least, hasn’t gone into trauma shock.

“Let’s see if there’s a way out down here,” I tell her. We walk through the dimness of the old paper mill, relying on the high intensity flashlight that I lifted from the gun shop for light. The whole place seems haunted and claustrophobic, the light dancing like the reflections of demon images against the wall. If you ever had any inclination to being twitchy, a full-on zombie attack will bring those tendencies to the fore. Ferlita, blessed little girl she is, seems to have no such issues.

“Don’t fire the shotgun any more if you don’t have to. I want to take a look at that shoulder, see if you’ve really hurt it.”

She just nods, her eyes flat now, revealing nothing.

We exit the mill near the river, taking a rusted steel catwalk across a spillway and then disembarking from the abandoned hulk via a long stair made of yellow-painted diamond plate. The nearby environs is overgrown and rough, and we use that to our advantage, coming back around to the front without being seen.

The muertos are smart, and so I’m careful, waiting and watching for nearly an hour. They could be hiding. When we approach the Suburban, I’m ready for any kind of ambush or other skulduggery, but nothing transpires. Just our feet scrunching on the gravel, just the sun slowly falling out of the sky.

The sound of the door closing behind us, putting us safely in the car, is like a toggle switch. I begin to shake and sweat, feeling that I have to do everything from puke to urinate all at the same time. I just lean back and wait, wait for it to be done, and Ferlita slides over, holding my sweat-slick hand, looking up at me while I struggle to get it together.

After a while, I can breathe again. “Belt in, Honey. We’re going home.”

I key the ignition and the engine catches. It still burbles sweetly, the sound of a dream not quite slipped away. The night falls, and we drive through the emptiness of it, the deep, primordial dark pushing at the corners of the headlight sweep.

*****

It is a failing with me that sometimes, as the difficult events of life subside in my rear view mirrors, I become unable to look forward, but only stare at the fading remnants of what was, growing all the more diminutive as the miles stack. I run onward, but blind and hurt, consumed by the hungry mouths of yesterday’s sorrow.

I am a man of simple enough tastes, and a quality tequila, unadorned, has always been sufficient to the purpose of disinfecting these psychic wounds, the sting of the sharp brown liquid enough to finally awaken me to what I still possess, rather than clutching for things I’ve lost.

I remember parts and pieces. The careful cleaning of our weapons of war. The desultory meal of canned stew and dried apricots. The livid bruise on Ferlita’s shoulder, evidence of her bravery and the terrible cost the world forced her to pay for her life. I remember pouring her two fingers of the Cuervo 1800 to quell the pain and blunt the sharp shards of the day. I remember my own indulgence, too many fingers of fire to easily reckon. More than what was required to cauterize the wounds, just less than what it took to scorch the ground to molten glass.

Now, I struggle into the middle of the next day, grasping upward out of clinging verdigris and spider’s silk, entering the painful, confused wakefulness that is the price for a moment’s forgetting. Suffering, to paraphrase Neil Young, the bottle and the damage done.

Ferlita, her eyes too hollow, her face too knowing, looks up from a slim paperback that is already read to the halfway point. “Conan the Usurper”, a book I had to comb through yard sales and thrift stores for years to find. She’s brought in a chair, a tube of Pringle’s potato chips, and her 20 gauge, which leans against the wall within arm’s reach. Her shoes don’t quite make it to the floor, swinging slow as push rods on an oil derrick as she scans the pages.

“How do you like that book?” I ask, finding it difficult to address all the greater topics.

She nods. “This guy Conan’s a bad hombre. We could use him against the muertos.”

I sit up. My stomach quavers, making me hold still for a moment. “Can’t argue with you there. Any hero would do.”

“We’ll have to do, Mr. Kinney. It’s just us. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them—the book heroes.”

“Yeah?”

“This Conan guy woudn’t hide out and wait for something to happen. He’d go right to the heart of it, kick in the doors, and…”

I let go of my air, holding hard against my knees. Of course I have a clear idea what Conan would do. Or Kull, or Bran Mak Morn, or Tarzan of the Apes. “And let the gods decide,” I say, finishing her sentence.

“Right. Let the gods decide.”

I swing my feet out and stand, shaky on my feet for a moment. The floor seems frigid against my soles, all the age and minor injury weighing me down. “You’re saying we should go right at them, come what may?”

She puts the book aside and stands up, hard and straight against the pain I know she feels. She stands, and as soldiers do, delivers. “Whatever happens.”

“We both may die.”

“I know. I’d rather die doing something tough than live in hiding like a mouse.”

I shake my head, not speaking for a moment. Her hands are fists at her sides, her eyes throwing fire as she imagines that I’ll try to dissuade her from her chosen course. “So says the young Joan of Arc, and so do I heed.”

“What’s that mean?”  Her teeth are set, her jaw flexed.

“It means that I’m in, Honey. Right to the wall, I’m in.”

*****

There are no dry runs allowed. We’re duty bound to land a telling blow against the enemy now, even as we test our theories. We are few, but clever. The enemy’s numbers are vast, their resolve unwavering. If we’re to neutralize their greatest threat, the high-functioning muertos like knife boy and his friends, we have to develop advanced tactics. They’re evolving. So must we.

Ferlita had half the idea. I just filled in the destructive element and the tactical considerations. It took us two days to find the materials, then two more days with the arc welder and the chemistry book. It’s not elegant, not how Dr. Porsche would do it, but I have faith that it’ll work. We’ll test small, then we’ll go big.

In the center of the public square, three hundred yards from our position atop an old Rexall drug store, is a lowrider truck. The stereo’s on, playing a band called Godsmack, which was the loudest thing I could find without obsessive twiddling at the record store. The windows are cranked down, the doors wide open. The stereo in the lowerider was clearly designed to keep audiologists in business and to serve as a public nuisance. It’s doing so now.

On the hood, there’s a feral hog, two wild dogs, and a yearling buck deer, all victims of opportunity. They’re eviscerated, the one thing that Ferlita elected not to watch closely, and I suppose the wind is carrying a fine blood smell outward into occupied territory.

One last thing. The whole car is a bomb. Yes. That’s the cool part. We are now approaching our fight with the muertos by using bait scenarios and improvised explosive devices. Progress.

Back in the big before, I had a friend who was a bit of a nut. One of those guys you didn’t necessarily invite to a family dinner. I remember someone referring to him as a “wild eyed lunatic” after one of his little stunts, wherein he started a magnesium fire we had a hell of a time putting out before it caused a forest fire. This guy, whose name was Lamonte Brecht, would tell us all sorts of stories about his exploits. Lamonte’s exploits often involved shooting things, being seriously injured in automobile wrecks, and blowing stuff up. He had the scars to act as bona fides.

One of his favorite explosive chemicals was something called Tannerite. It’s basically ammonium nitrate and aluminum dust. There’s some other stuff in there, too. A little titanium and some zirconium, I think. Anyway, Lamonte loved to mix up some of this stuff, put it into a pop can, and shoot it with his rifle. While Tannerite’s mostly harmless, even fully mixed, an impact as dramatic as a high velocity shell will cause it to go, “boom.”  A half pound will throw a lot of dust up in the air and blow the hood off of a car. A coffee can full, I’m told, will burst a refrigerator into shrapnel.

I’m not one to go low ball. The cab of the lowrider has a hundred pound canister of Tannerite in the passenger seat. The bomb canister is surrounded with a secondary container that contains my hasty equivalent to “grape shot”. Short lengths of chain, nails, scrap rebar…anything I could find. There’s an eight inch target area painted red, the only place that isn’t packed with fragmentary material. The whole rig started life as a forty gallon chemical drum, and suffered the indignities of my poor welding until the current configuration was attained.

I have a pilfered Weatherby rifle chambered for .378 Weatherby Magnum, topped by a Leupold scope that can give up to 22x magnification. My sniper shooting isn’t what it was when I was thirty, but it’s not a difficult shot. The difficult part, as we’re now become aware, is waiting for the muertos to get to the party.

“The big umbrella was a good idea, huh?” Ferlita says, fishing for a compliment. It was her idea.

“We’d be sunburnt by now otherwise.”

“You would be, pale face,” she shoots back.

I hand her the binoculars and roll to my back. “Ouch.”  My body’s aching all ready, and it’s only been a few hours. I figured they’d come sooner. Soon as someone can figure out the thought process of the muertos, they should let me know. It’d save me a lot of time.

“There’s one,” she whispers. “Shit, it’s him.”

“Him?  Knife boy?”

I roll to the rifle, up on sand bags and trained on the target all ready. It’s knife boy, all right. The knives, though, have proliferated. He’s found a heavy weightlifting belt and put it around himself. He has knives of every imaginable sort tucked under the belt, and he’s now carrying what looks to be an actual Roman sword.

“Blow it. Blow him away, Mr. Kinney.”

I shake my head. “Not yet. I didn’t do that much work for one super muerto. That’s not good return on investment.”  For all that, though, the urge to just shoot knife boy’s head clean off is pretty strong. No good, though. I don’t know if that would queer the pitch for the others.

“But…it’s knife boy,” Ferlita urges.

“I know. Let’s get a few of his friends down there, then we’ll frag ‘em. Okay?”

She blows out air and keeps watching. Knife boy circles the truck, far more intent than even super muertos should be. I see that he’s changed clothes, and he’s wearing something on his head. It takes me a moment to figure out what it is, but I eventually see that it’s one of those little hats that bicyclists used to wear, before helmets became the preferred headgear. An odd green and white. I search my memory, thinking of that, thinking of the Bianchi ten speed I had back in the seventies. Knife boy circumnavigates the lowrider like a cop on a television show, bent slightly, on his toes, alert.

“That bastard’s getting smarter all the time.”

“I’m telling you, blow him to hell,” Ferlita tells me.

I take my eye away from the scope and look at her. She’s shaking all over now, sweat on her upper lip. She can’t hold the binoculars on target at this point. Not for a three hundred yard distance. Tears stand in her eyes.

“Shit. Shit. Okay.”  I put my eye cheek against the Weatherby’s stock and make the minor corrections in position that swing the field of vision of the rifle nearly twenty yards way out there. Where is he?  I don’t see him immediately, but I swing the scope around to take in a bigger zone. There he is. The Roman sword is bloody. Knife boy’s face wears a feral grin. He has the carcass of the deer slung over his shoulder, and he’s shagging ass away from the car. I try to get a bead on him, but he’s already under cover, already moving too fast to hold the cross hairs on him.

Hesitate and be lost. Here we are. We waited for the sheep and let the lion get away. I say a lot of things I shouldn’t say in front of Ferlita. She nods and says them back to me. No recriminations and I-told-you-so’s, at least. There’s no need.

“Didn’t work, sweetie,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Maybe we can still blow up some of the normal muertos. I don’t think they run in knife boy’s gang. They may still fall for it.”

“That’s gonna be some cold comfort.”

She shrugs. I shrug back.

“We’ll give it until nightfall.”

*****

I’ll say one thing for our little gambit. It was a hell of a boom. Our roost three hundred yards away was, in fact, about minimum safe distance from which to observe the lowrider’s supernova. That said, never has so much ordnance been used to lay low so few zombies. Three, to be exact.

But boy, were they ever terminated. I found a smoking boot, foot still in it, just slightly over a hundred yards away, standing up as if someone had been standing there and had otherwise been vaporized by some science fiction weapon.

The truck’s gas tank had been topped up as high as it would go, and I’d put another twenty gallons of diesel in the bed in Jerry cans. The fuel burned hot and high for better than an hour, the tires going up with all their sickening white smoke plumes, the black of oil smoke around the outside to round out the industrial disease we’d caused.

We continue to watch, upwind of the worst of it, as all the material and effort go upward into the dark sky. The fire’s now jumped to three of the nearby buildings. It’s unlikely to go further, but the wood of the old town hall, especially, is decorating the night sky with red plumes of fire, every window alight like the empty eye sockets of burning skulls in hell.

“What’d we learn?” I ask Ferlita.

“Plan wasn’t Conan enough. Just bait and shoot would be as good. Way easier to set up, too.”  She puts her eyes back against the binoculars. “Here’s something we didn’t know. They like fire.”

“Huh?”

“Muertos. They’re coming around for the cookout. Hard to see ‘em until they get close to the fire, but there’s a shitload of them down there.”

“Ferlita, I don’t want you picking up every rotten word in this old soldier’s vocabulary,” I chide, not even half-hearted.

She ignores me. I put my eye to the scope. We’re only about half as far away as we’d been at zero hour, and my scope settings require me to aim several inches low now. I don’t have the wherewithal to make the exact calculation in my head. If I see one, I’ll just have to wing it. Hold low and some reverse Kentucky Windage.

My old eyes rebel against the sting and flash of the fire, when intensified by the high power scope. I already have a headache from the blast of the bomb, the waiting, and the fumes of the fire down below. No one ever said that living on would be easy.

I see one, loitering with its dull eyes staring into the brightness of the flames. The pale gray of the muerto’s flesh is given life by the flames, an artificial rouge, but nothing can restore true sentience to their slack expression and imbecilic stance. No creative lighting has that level of magic in it, short of the golden bolt of the divine that wrings new life from mute clay. Nothing the hand of a simple fool like myself can create with bullets and bombs. I gesture for Ferlita to put her ear muffs on, sliding my own maximum suppression plugs in. They don’t fully ameliorate the noise of an ultra magnum rifle, but we take what we can get.

I take the shot, holding too low. The mighty .378 makes my poor sniping count the best it can, blowing a shot put sized void in the middle of the zombie’s chest. It goes down and doesn’t come up. With enough static shock, it seems that even zombies respond to a center-of-mass wound. I rack another round into the chamber, having to take my eye away from the scope to draw back the long stroke of the rifle’s bolt.

With the cartridge sent home again, I search for the next one, and the next, and the next. Come morning, I have but five of my .378s remaining, and my shoulder is as black and blue as Ferlita’s, but the muertos are laying thick and rank upon the ground. In the end, the solution is as simple as fire, though we come to it unawares and through long and foolish bouts of theory.

1st place: Apocalypse and Andy, by T.J. McFadden

Runner up: …The One-Eyed Man is King by MadHarlequin

Congratulations to both. T.J.’s recognition is long overdue, and MadHarlequin’s tale was hell of a first story submission. We’re grateful to the two of you for your talents.