Authors: Peter Cawdron
Zee keels over, crumpling to the boardwalk.
If the other zombies notice, they pay no attention.
The astronaut steps slowly over the dead zombie, taking pains to avoid getting blood on his crisp, white boots. A fan starts, whirling madly. I haven’t heard the sound of a fan in almost a decade, but the hum is unmistakable, reminding me of a computer’s CPU cooling fan with its frantic, breakneck pace.
The lead astronaut glances back as though responding to something the second astronaut said, but no words have been exchanged, none that I can hear.
I’m terrified.
Spotlights ripple across the rails and sleepers, briefly flickering across my face and I duck from view. I’m not sure what scares me more. Zee? Or these silent deadly spacemen from another world? Part of me wants to call out, to get their attention, to plead for help, but there’s an ominous feel to how they interact with Zee. So long as Zee ignores them, they’re happy to push on past. Any disruption is met with lethal force, and I’m afraid I might upset the balance and get caught up in the slaughter. How can there be an uneasy truce between the living and the dead? There’s tension in the air, as though the slightest imbalance could cause the world itself to implode, and I breathe in hushed tones.
The second astronaut carries two white suitcases, both of them covered in white padding like the spacesuits.
The lead astronaut stops, turning slowly and surveying the bridge. He looks down, touching at a camera mounted on the side of his bulky helmet just below one of the spotlights. He’s looking at the carnage by the bridge footing. I wonder what he can see with his fancy camera. Dead bodies? A rifle strewn to one side? Does he realize a man died down there?
I watch intently as the two astronauts walk slowly off the bridge.
Zee disperses. It’s almost as though there’s an agreement between them, and I see my opportunity. I scramble up onto the bridge, swinging my legs onto the blood soaked walkway. Behind me, zombies growl in the darkness, but I stay low, darting off after the astronauts with my pack over one shoulder and my gun drawn.
Zee sees me.
The lead astronaut shoves his way through a bunch of zombies. There’s ten or twenty of them and yet he pushes through them like a shopper in a crowded department store. They can smell me. They’re becoming enraged by the scent of my blood. Although Zee allows the spacemen safe passage, several zombies try to bustle past the astronauts to get at me and my heart sinks.
The astronauts have no tolerance for any zombie that doesn’t let them pass quietly by. The lead astronaut places his gun to the head of one zombie and then another as they snarl and snap at me. Skulls shatter. Blood sprays across the other zombies in response to a swoosh rather than an Earth-shattering boom. The spaceman doesn’t see me. He’s preoccupied with Zee.
I’ve got to stay close to them. I creep forward, hunching down, hoping I’m hard to see in the dark. I can’t do anything about smell, but I can keep sight and sound to a minimum. Something brought in more zombies after the shooting stopped. I only hope my scent has slowly spread around the area long before now, masking my movement as I catch up to the astronauts.
The zombies are confused. It’s as though the astronauts are invisible. Another two zombies drop as the lead astronaut dispatches them with his silent gun, each time pushing his gun against either the forehead or the temple of a zombie. Zee sees his comrades fall, but he doesn’t see the spacemen.
I creep up to within a foot of the second astronaut, tagging along behind him. I’m so close I could reach out and touch the US flag on his backpack. Strips of velcro line the pack, while white cloth covers various tubes twisting around his waist and into his suit. The backpacks and helmets are so big and cumbersome they must severely restrict vision. That suit must weigh a ton.
Even though the astronauts are in big, bulky white spacesuits, Zee ignores them, staring at me. Dark eyes follow my movement, but they don’t advance. Those few that do show any interest are killed by the astronauts. It seems the astronauts are acutely aware of any zombie aggression, but they ignore any zombie that lets them slip past. I’m confused, but I’m not complaining. My fingers are just inches from the humming backpack of the second astronaut as he clears the bulk of the zombies, following a path through the woods.
Leaves and twigs crunch beneath boots that should be walking on the moon or Mars. The astronauts pick up their pace, moving with a gentle lope, more skipping than running. I’m expecting to see a spaceship in the clearing ahead—not a UFO with sleek lines and smooth, reflective surfaces, but something ungainly like an Apollo lunar lander with its crumpled gold foil and spidery metal legs.
Suddenly, spotlights illuminate the forest, casting long shadows through the trees back toward the bridge. The astronauts move out into the grass clearing as I duck behind a tree. As much as I want to, I can’t follow them. Astronauts are anachronistic—they’re a relic of the past. Something’s horribly wrong. Astronauts don’t belong in the zombie apocalypse. As bad as zombies are, they’re a known quantity. I’m afraid of the unknown. I have to know. I have to see what happens next. I have to understand where they’re going before I can follow.
I peer out from behind an old oak as the astronauts seem to blend with the blinding white light, disappearing from sight. And as quickly as it came, the light is gone and darkness falls again, only the night is now pitch black.
Temporarily blinded by the sudden drop in light, I hear growls from behind me. I stagger across the grass with my gun drawn, turning and pointing at the sound of zombies advancing through the woods. I stumble, tripping over a curb. Slowly, my night vision returns and I realize I’m standing in a parking lot on the outskirts of town.
The railroad curves to one side, following a gentle arc into the distance. There’s an overgrown baseball diamond and some burned out buildings that look like a clubhouse and a garage.
Dark figures stagger down the road toward me. These are not spacemen, and I’m left wondering if the last few minutes were a hallucination—a fantasy constructed by my mind while dreaming about the stars?
I run.
There’s a reason the marauders never go out at night. Smell, sound, sight. The night suits Zee just fine. For me, though, sight is critical to survival. I won’t last long in the open, and yet I can’t go to ground. Both Ferguson and David before him warned me about the danger of staying in one spot and allowing Zee time to build up numbers. The night belongs to Zee.
My heart pounds within my chest. I’m running so hard it hurts. I can’t go on like this, so I slow my pace to a jog. Darkened houses, burned out cars, dead bodies lying on the street—this is the stuff of nightmares. I was better off on the bridge.
There’s a strip mall to one side. I recognize a large donut on the roof. I remember seeing this almost a block away when Jane was attacked next to the bus a few days ago. That gigantic donut, with its peeling paint and rough, almost concrete looking surface, is a landmark, giving me a point of reference and buoying my spirits. I know where I am.
Broken concrete crunches under my boots with a rhythmic thud that betrays life to Zee, and zombies turn toward the sound as I jog through the intersection.
I can’t run forever.
I can’t win in a fight against Zee.
I have to use the one thing that gives me an advantage over zombies. Brains. I have to outsmart them. David was clever. He took us to that old house on the hill, knowing it had been cleaned out long ago, knowing it sat on an acre of land, knowing it had a strong, iron fence and two distant exits.
What would David do? He’d be smart and use whatever he had around him.
Looters have ransacked the strip mall. Broken glass lies scattered on the pavement along with clothing mannequins and smashed TVs or computer monitors, I’m not sure which. I guess there wasn’t too much difference between them other than size. And it’s surprising to see these relics that once meant so much to us lying crushed on the road.
I don’t see anything I can use. David would, but I don’t. I need to look harder. Think. THINK.
Zee stalks me.
I trip on an overturned office chair and collide with a dented car. I’m not hurt, but hitting the sheet metal door made a hell of a racket.
The shadows come alive.
I was aware of a scattering of zombies further down the road, but several more walk out from a shattered storefront, surprising me with how close they are. David warned me about this. He told me, it’s not the zombie you see that gets you, and yet here I am, bumbling around in the dark, waking the dead.
Got to think fast. If I start shooting, I’m going to bring Zee in from miles around, but even if I had a baseball bat or a crowbar, there’s too many of them to fight.
I need to find a weapon other than a gun.
Crouching for a second, I slip my gun back in the ankle holster, being sure to clip the leather strap in place. The gun is effectively useless because of the deafening noise it makes. I need to free up my hands and only resort to using the gun as my last option.
Strip mall. There’s got to be something here I can use to my advantage.
As zombies stumble out of the darkness groaning, I realize the strip mall is long, boxing me in. It’s made up of a dozen shops lined up next to each other. If I run, I’ll run into more zombies coming down the street. But weakness is in the eye of the beholder. A weakness for one person is a strength for another. This strip mall might box me in, but it also boxes Zee. If I can get above Zee, get up on those rooftops, I’ll be free to move around. And I can pick my points of entry and exit.
There has to be access points at the rear of the mall, but that means going into the shadows. I hate this. I DAMN WELL HATE THIS! Darkness terrifies me, and not just because of Zee. There’s no control. No hope. In the darkness there lies only death.
Arms reach for me out of the shadows.
Instead of acting on fear and madly running away and eventually running into more zombies walking down the road, I duck beneath the outstretched arms of the closest zombie and run at him. I have to face my fears or I’m dead. I drop my shoulder, planting it firmly into Zee’s ribs and knocking him on his ass. Damn, that felt good, but there’s no time to celebrate. I’ve got to get to that rooftop.
The quickest way is to go through one of the stores.
Glass crunches beneath my boots.
It’s pitch black inside the store, but I catch the outline of a fire extinguisher on the wall as a zombie passes in front of a small window at the rear of the store. I grab the extinguisher. It’s full. It’s heavy. I can use this.
Zee lurches out of the darkness, snarling and grabbing for me. I swing the fire extinguisher, connecting with the side of his head and he crashes into a shop counter, knocking god knows what to the floor. Thousands of tiny beads or M&Ms or something scatter across the tiled floor making one hell of a racket. They seem to bounce forever, slowly losing their kinetic energy. It takes a minute or so for the sound of what could be torrential rain to fade into silence.
I dart around the counter and into the back of the store.
The rear door is locked. Stupid, so stupid. I rattle the handle, hoping the door will spring open, but that’s wishful thinking.
“Of course it’s locked,” I chide myself. “Hazel, what were you thinking? Did you think everyone would just leave their doors unlocked in the middle of the apocalypse?”
I rattle the handle again, but my effort is pointless.
“I am so fucking stupid!”
Holding the fire extinguisher with both hands—one high, one low—I pound on the lock. I’m making enough noise to wake the dead, or the undead as it may be. The handle snaps but the door doesn’t open. I’m making it worse. I bring the extinguisher thundering down on the barrel lock, catching the lip of the lock with each blow, but still the door holds.
Zee growls.
I raise the fire extinguisher above my shoulder, ready to bring it crashing down into his face, but I can’t see him. A shelf falls, knocking me to one side. Zee crawls over the metal shelving, crushing me against the floor.
I scream.
Zee howls.
I can’t reach my gun. My arms are free, but my chest, hips and legs are trapped beneath the six-foot shelving. Boxes of books, magazines and pens scatter across the floor.
Zee grabs at my throat, choking me, cutting off my air supply.
Tiny pinpricks of light appear in the darkness as I fight to stay conscious.
I still have hold of the fire extinguisher, but I can’t bring it to bear on Zee. Frantic for any last chance at life, I fumble with the thin metal pin securing the extinguisher. My fingers twitch, flicking the pin to one side. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing something, anything in those final few seconds as my brain is starved of oxygen. Grabbing at the handle, a burst of carbon dioxide explodes around us.
Zee releases his grip. He’s confused, bewildered. He’s certainly not hurt. The spray of CO2 went nowhere near him.
I drag the extinguisher closer, directing the nozzle in his face and fire again. White clouds envelop us. Ice clings to his face.
I cough, dragging myself from beneath the shelf and get to my feet. Zee growls, but he’s facing the door. He’s facing where I was, not where I am.
Smell, sound, sight. That order is working against him.
I unleash another burst aimed at his face and he turns, lashing out with his arms, but it’s as though someone’s thrown a sack over his head.
White frost sticks to his cheek.
He can’t see me in the dark. He can no longer smell me, and the sound must be confusing. It’s a hiss, a burst of sound like a rush of wind, and I see how I can use fire extinguishers to protect myself. They’re everywhere. Every business has at least one of them, so supplies are plentiful. I’ve yet to see if they’re effective in daylight, but at the moment there’s a strange silence as Zee sniffs at the air, trying to pick up on my scent again. Something about the CO2 or the cold is blocking his sense of smell. It’s temporary, but I’ll take any advantage I can.