The Zombie Letters (32 page)

“Well, you said that the drug you made did really well in saline solution,” Christian said, sounding distracted.

“Never thought of that before. Maybe I am just too jumbled up to comprehend anything right now. Listen, man. Take ‘er easy and let me know if you need anything. Have a good night.”

              “You too, Doctor Miles. See ya in the morning.”

              “Bright and early, fellow Doctor Garner! Gonna be a big day tomorrow!”

              Christian went back to his cards and smiled. “Big day . . . you bet. You bet.”

IV

              They stayed up for another couple of hours. Victoria Rains kicked everyone’s asses at Monopoly not only once, but twice. She had a stack at the end that nearly shut down the banker. Dennis Jackson called the General before they all turned in for the night. They were on their way and would be arriving the next morning. Despite the extreme need to get there, he said that they had to move slowly. Too late to start making mistakes. Getting in a big hurry will only fuck things up. There were enough side-rooms to accommodate everybody. Dennis slept on a couch in the main Base Commander’s office. Doctor Miles, who drew first watch, eventually retired on one of the cots set up at the back of the barracks. Ana came to relieve him. She was always apprehensive about the watch, but after Dennis showed her how to safely fire a gun, she seemed at least halfway at ease enough to stand a shift without too much objection.

              Victoria Rains lied awake at the cot she set up in the cafeteria. Everyone aside from Frenchie was at the back of the building. French slept near the door. He said he felt safer there. The cafeteria was the warmest area of the whole building . . . September was still warm enough at night to remain comfortable, but not without at least a light blanket. The other rooms felt at least ten degrees colder. She lay on her back with her hands laced behind her head. She tossed and turned through Dennis’ whole shift. Her thoughts drifted to Dennis for a moment. What a terrible thing he must be going through. His wife and babies were taken away and he was nearly killed trying to go with them. They were out there now . . . believing he was dead. Right now, his loved ones were mourning him. Poor Dennis. He is such a nice man. He seemed to have a deep sense of loyalty about him. Dennis Jackson took respect seriously. When someone or something steps in the way of that, his personality instantly changes. He can be a pretty intimidating guy. Kind of funny for a tall, curly-headed computer guy with thick glasses. The whole group had a lot of respect for Dennis Jackson. Alvin French too. For such a good-looking Los Angeles rich boy, he seemed truly genuine. Victoria could tell he didn’t originally come from money. Ana had seemed to take a liking to him. She was a little naive, but a good person. Christian . . . she didn’t even want to get started on
that
guy. Darin kept vouching for him anytime his name was mentioned, but Darin Miles is naturally a trusting person. Christian Garner isn’t all there.

              “I think he’s snapped,” Victoria told Dennis before the evening’s festivities began. “We’ve all come to be close . . . closer than you’d really think in such a short time. I dunno . . . maybe it’s just the circumstances, but it’s true nonetheless.” Dennis decided to make a pact with everybody. No matter what, they would all stick together. Even if they were rescued or not. Even if and when they get transported to a safe place with other survivors, they formed a strange bond with each other. Strange, but natural and real.

              Darin wanted to give Christian the benefit of a doubt, but Christian was just so strange. Ana was a sweetheart and seemed to come out of her shell even within the past few days. Dennis said that her breaking free was a fairly new development. Maybe it was Alvin French. Frenchie told Victoria he was a Buddhist. Why such a catch like that would want to remain celibate was a mystery to her . . . but to each their own. Buddhists are good people. Ana Garner seemed fascinated with him. She was like that with all the other men to a certain degree. It was almost as if she wasn’t aware that men
could
show kindness. Men could laugh without having to be drunk, they could speak softly without an ulterior motive and they could have a difficult conversation without throwing a fist. That Christian would need to be watched.

              She forced herself to stop thinking about that creep. The last thing she wanted on her mind as she laid out on the cot in only her bra and panties was Christian Garner. Just the thought of him made her want to cover herself . . . as if merely conjuring up the image of him could somehow cause him to see her. Tonight was going to be the last night that her and Darin could have had alone for awhile. She’d known he had fallen for her for some time and wanted to respect his need to break the fear, but she was finished waiting for him to make any kind of move forward. As she rested there, she imagined his hands on her, his breath in her face, the feeling of a rushing heart against her skin. Tickles of falling hair, the splaying of fingertips, the goosebumps caused by even the slightest caress. When Darin entered her room and slipped under the blanket beside her without saying a word, she nearly didn’t believe it. For a moment, her imagination must have created a phantom of him. The shudders inside, short breaths and the wetness of her now-exploring fingers between her thighs had created a tangible likeness of the man she loved . . . from her mind’s eye to her bed. Thank God that notion passed quickly. The heart-skips inside were hers. The exited breaths passed between them. His hands on her face. Victoria opened her mouth to speak to him. She wanted to say anything to assure herself that he was really there and that she wasn’t losing her mind. When he pressed his lips to hers and placed one hand at the small of her back, she didn’t feel from this man what she felt from any other kiss she ever had. Her loved her and wanted nothing in return but that. She could stop him . . . even make him sleep alone and he would still love her. No more sleeping alone. Not anymore. He was really
here
. The man that was on her mind constantly was giving her the embrace she’d waited her whole life for.

              As they kissed with their arms around each other, Victoria Rains reached behind Darin and removed her watch. She had no use for it anymore.

V

              Everyone was still asleep when the front door was broken down. Darin Miles snapped awake and looked out the window. A sea of the dead surrounded the entire building. They had entered inside and were slowly piling in. The ear-piercing pops of a machine gun rang shrill in the early morning air. Dennis Jackson emerged from the barracks with a machete in one hand and a micro SMG in the other. Ana stood behind him . . . her eyes wide and frightened. Christian was standing in the middle of the building as the dead piled in. He was spraying fire from the large gun at his hip. “We gotta get the hell outta here! The roof! The roof!” Christian screamed. He reached behind his back, where he had a grenade strapped to his belt. He flipped a little switch on it and lobbed it into the spreading mass of the rotting, marching dead. Ana looked at him strangely. She had no idea he knew how to use those things. He was even wearing one of their camouflage field jackets. Then it hit her . . . Alvin was right inside, in an officer’s office right near the front door. Alvin emerged from his closed side-office with an assault rifle in-tow. He came out shooting as the grenade blast went off. The horde of the infected were surrounding the entire area. He had no chance. In a shot of desperation, he pointed the gun at the head of one of the creatures in front of him. The bullets fired from the gun ripped through its head, sending a spray of its dark, murky blood onto Alvin’s face. He screamed and continued to blindly shoot. A stray bullet ricochet off the ceiling and missed Dennis’ head by inches before it buried itself into the drywall next to Ana’s leg. Clawing at his eyes, the sound that came out of Alvin French’s mouth was horrifying. A wet gargle replaced his high-pitched wails as his body thrashed violently, as if he were having a terrible seizure. “Dennis! He’s turning!” Christian shouted as he backed up a couple feet while spraying more machine gun fire. The masses of the deceased people groaned when the bullets hit them. Some made that odd hissing sound that sounded like the warning call of a cornered animal. A moving mass of the dead . . . their throats and lungs filled with dirt and rocks, the stench of decay hung heavily in the air; were advancing on Christian.

              Dennis watched as French joined in with his new brethren. His eyes now looked like all the others . . . stained a deep, uniform red due to bloodshot. All discernable trace of humanity was gone. Ana screamed and grabbed onto the back of Dennis’ shirt. He reached into one of the large rack lockboxes at the foot of his cot and handed her his gas mask. “Put this on!”

              “What about you??!!” she shouted, her face full of tears.

              “We’re in an armory! I have another one in there . . .
NOW
!”

              She complied. A loud boom echoed behind them. Victoria and Doctor Miles were at an open doorway that lead to a stairwell.

              “I hear the helicopter . . . let’s get to the roof!” Victoria yelled over the sound of the chaos.

              Dennis screamed for Christian, who was now in an all-out sprint to the stairs. “Come on, man! Run!”

              “I’m out! Oh, fuck, I’m out!!” Christian said and dropped the machine gun to the floor. He reached into the waistband of his pants and pulled out a black-finished handgun. They all had taken quite a bit of firepower from the armory and stored it . . . at the other end of the building. In Alvin’s room. There was no getting to it now. All they had was what they had on them. The bullets did nothing but drive them back for a second. If one was lucky enough, they’d stumble and fall for a mere moment or it would hit a weak spot on one of their legs, severing it. By and large, any weapon against these things was useless, unless it separated the heads from the spines or incinerated them.

              They all ran to the stairs. Christian was the last one to reach them. He slammed the heavy metal door behind him and locked it. They had time, but not much. Once on the roof, the sight was terrible. The dead had swarmed the building al the way around. They were everywhere. A mass of them stretched out to at least one-hundred yards in every direction. They were all looking up . . . their dead hands clawing at the outside walls.

              The survivors all stood on the roof, watching the approaching helicopter. “Where’s Christian?” Dennis said. They all looked around, but he was nowhere. From behind the elevated doorway that allowed access to the roof, Christian walked to the edge of the building with a large green cylinder over his shoulder.

              “The hell is that?” Darin said. Christian knelt down and pulled something out on the large metal tube he balanced on his shoulder. He then flipped up a small sight on the end of it. An incredible boom escaped it, along with a cloud of smoke from both ends. The helicopter, now just thirty feet from the building, exploded into a giant hovering fireball and fell to earth. Before anyone could react, Christian pointed his handgun at them. In the other hand, he held Archie by the lip on the pot and dangled it off the roof.

              “No, Christian, don’t!” Ana said. He cocked the gun and placed Archie at the edge of the roof. Placing one foot beside it, he smiled at them.

              “Put your guns down. Dennis, lose the machete too,” Christian said. “I’ll kick this fucker off the roof and then we’re all screwed.”

              “Baby, why are you doing this?” Ana said. She was still standing behind Dennis. No one had exited the burning heap of twisted metal that sent a pillar of smoke sailing into the field. The dead gathered around it, searching for whatever was inside. Those men in that chopper came to rescue all of them. Now, they were a barbecue.

              “Shut up, you cunt. I should’ve tossed your barren, lying ass away when I had the chance. I got good with that rocket launcher, didn’t I? Found it a week ago. I’ve been goin’ out at night and practicing with it. Had to go out pretty far so no one would hear me . . . human or otherwise. But, don’t worry about me,” Christian said with a disjointed laugh. “Archie comes along with me now. I . . .” he stopped and looked up into the sky toward the sound of another helicopter approaching. “They sent
TWO
?!”

              “Of course, Garner. I told them to send as many as they could. Always works best to send backup in case shit hits the fan. You sent those fucking zeds here, didn’t you?”

              Christian took a playful bow. “Guilty as charged, Doctor. No different that herding cattle, really.” Darin took a step forward. Christian fired a round right in front of the doctor’s foot. “Stay back. I have another helicopter to shoot down.”

              Behind Dennis, Ana lifted her leg up. Christian didn’t notice. He thought all the guns on the roof at their feet were all they had. The second he heard or saw anything, all he had to do was shoot. The roof was small. There was no way anyone could miss at that range. Keeping the handgun trained on his fellow survivors, he knelt down to pick up the rocket launcher. To Ana, it looked like he turned his head in slow motion. He might have only looked away for a second to his left to see the helicopter approaching in the distance, but when he did, Ana shoved Dennis aside as hard as she could. He tumbled and before Dennis Jackson hit the deck, Ana had put three bullets into Christian. She’d fired four. The first one hit right above his ribcage, the other hit the wrist holding the gun, the third one missed, striking the floor at Christian’s feet. The fourth bullet hit him in the side of his neck. He dropped both weapons and screamed. He brought his mangled hand to put pressure on the bleeding hole in his neck. He stumbled around the edge of the roof, his hand firmly pressed against his neck as the other arm hung like a sack of raw meat. Oozing in-between his fingers splayed to his neck was more blood than he’d ever seen before . . . and it was all his.