Those Lazy Sundays: A Novel of the Undead (23 page)

He'd killed someone.

In the last two days he'd seen enough killing ˗ something that until then, had been practically a fiction ˗ a thing that happened on television and in the movies, maybe on the news to other people he didn't know. But not in real life.

Then everything had happened, and he'd watched Kate kill... he didn't know how many people. Four. Five. Maybe half a dozen.

And now he'd done it, too. Taken a life.

His hands, still clutching the pistol, were shaking. His whole body was shaking. He hadn't thought about what he would feel if he had to kill someone. He hadn't wanted to think about it. But if he had considered it, he would have thought that he would feel guilt. Maybe disgust.

But he felt neither. He felt... terrified. The man, who had probably been coming to kill him, was dead. He had defended himself. The threat ˗ that one anyway ˗ was gone. Yet he felt terrified. More terrified than when the man had been coming at him.

Gunshots came rapidly from the hall. Before he could get up, another person staggered into the room and was on him. Jack kicked her hard with his right leg, sending her stumbling backwards a couple of feet. With the extra time, Jack rolled to the side and off of the bed. He was surprised when he landed on something hard and lumpy. He looked down and saw that he was lying on Phil’s dead body.

He got up in time to watch the new person tumble clumsily over the bed. Jack grabbed her by the hair and flipped her onto her stomach. He jammed the pistol into the back of her head, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The house was alive with noise, the raspy moans filling the void in between the deafening gunshots. Kate was still firing steadily, the pace of gunshots as fast as it had been when Jack first opened the door.

Looking into the hall at the line of people, Jack saw that not only had he been wrong about them leaving, he had miscalculated their numbers badly. There were far more of them than he had guessed.

Another stepped into the doorway, a short man with a cue-ball head and a pointy nose. Jack tucked the pistol back into his jeans and gripped the bat with both hands. He stepped over Phil’s body, still keeping the bed between himself and the man, and crouched in a modified batting stance. Imagining the top of the man’s head as a large, shiny baseball, Jack stepped, cocked his bat, and swung fluidly, the sweet spot on the bat connecting perfectly with the man’s forehead, the metal-on-bone sound mercifully drowned out by an almost simultaneous gunshot from the hallway. The blow sent the man sprawling backwards into the wall, the front of his skull caved in.

Jack played skull baseball with five more people, cracking their heads when they took their second step into the room. He was still in his batting stance, waiting for another to come in, when everything went quiet.  The shooting had stopped.

H
E MOVED TOWARDS the door, stepping over corpses, stopping just inside the doorway. He could still hear people in the stairwell and on the floor below, but Kate’s gun was silent. Jack peeked around the corner of the doorway, his heart racing in his chest, fearful of what he might see.

A second later, he dropped to the ground, crying out as a bullet slammed into the doorframe, sending splinters of wood flying at him.

“Kate, it’s me!” he screamed.

“Oh my God!” Kate yelled in surprise.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jack said, slowly pushing himself off the ground. “I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.”

He tried to kick a body away with his feet, but the dead weight was too heavy, so he gave up and just stepped over the corpse. Kate was standing at the end of the hallway, her back to the wall. Bodies lay from the edge of the stairs to halfway down the hall, several having fallen over each other.

“Jesus,” he said, almost whispering. He counted fourteen corpses in the hall. It had been a massacre.

Jack looked at her, his face grim. “Nice shooting."

“There’s more,” she said. “When they fell by the stairs, the rest of them kept tripping over the dead ones. So a lot of them fell down the stairs, I think.”

“I guess that’s why they aren’t still coming up, huh? They can’t get up the stairs?”

Kate shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Damn,” Jack swore.

Using the bodies like stepping stones, he walked to the door and looked down the staircase. Six more bodies were on the stairs. Two still-living people were repeatedly tripping over the still bodies of their brethren, and over each other,  making a clumsy attempt to climb the staircase. A few more stood at the bottom of the stairs, growling, looking angry that their prey was beyond their reach. Their growls grew louder when they noticed Jack.

“Are there a lot left?” Kate asked. She navigated the sea of corpses and joined him at the top of the stairs.

“A good amount. Can you shoot them from here?”

“I think so," Kate replied. "But I don't have that many bullets left."

Jack stepped back, almost tripping over one of the bodies.

Kate aimed and fired, and one of the people at the base of the stairs fell to the ground. There was a second gunshot, and Jack jumped, startled. This one had come from outside. They exchanged glances. Kate fired again, hitting another person who had wandered near the staircase, though missing the head. She took him out with a second shot, and he fell on top of the one she'd shot before him.

There was another gunshot, this one vibrating the walls. The head of the last person at the bottom of the stairs exploded in a spray of blood and slime.

"Kate? Jack?"

The voice came from downstairs, and they recognized it immediately: it was Sarah.

"We're up here!" Jack yelled in response.

Someone popped from around the corner into the staircase, and Kate jerked the pistol up again, ready to fire. A second later, she lowered it, a broad smile coming across both her and Jack's faces.

"Sarah!" they both yelled. Their friend was soaking wet, her blond hair hanging down over her shoulders, her clothes ˗ the same she’d been wearing for two days ˗ darkened and waterlogged. She smiled and climbed the stairs, stepping on and over the corpses. She looked around, shocked at the body count.

"God," she said. "I can't believe... I mean you guys held out against this many people."

"I... we had to kill them, Sarah," Kate said. "We opened the door because we thought they were gone, but˗"

"You don't have to explain," Sarah cut in.

"I know," Jack said. "But..."

"All those people," Kate said, shaking her head. "It's just hard to believe. It's hard to believe we killed so many..."

"Can't kill someone if they're already dead." The voice came from the bottom of the staircase.

"Jack and Kate, this is Brent Williamson. He was in the police station with us. He helped us get out."

Jack nodded. "Thanks," he said. "What the hell do you mean about already being dead?"

"Just a little theory ˗ well, it's more than a theory really," Brent began.

"We can go into all this later," Sarah said, though Jack was still intrigued, and was looking at Brent intently. "We just need to get out of here. Mary is waiting for us."

"Mary?" Kate asked. "What about Kyle?"

Brent's face remained stoic, but Sarah's face told them all they needed to know.

"Andy?" Jack asked, though he was afraid to hear the answer. He looked at Sarah, and knew he didn't have to hear that one either.

"Jeez," Jack said, the single word all he could muster. They stood in silence for several seconds, Jack and Kate still absorbing what they'd just been told, feeling like they'd just been punched in the gut. Their friends. Dead. Two days ago they'd left the Strive retreat, piled into a van, laughing, joking, making fun, getting ready for a few-hours drive back to a college life of classes and studying and parties and drinking and dates.

Now two of their friends were dead. Even if things did return back to how they were, even if Jack, Mary, Sarah and Kate got the chance to go back to school, Kyle and Andy were gone forever. No second chances. No take-backs. No mulligans. They were gone. Just gone.

"Hey guys, I hate to be the one who breaks the pow-wow here, but we should get back to the truck. You do have another friend who hopefully is still alive, that you can meet," Brent said.

Sarah turned around and glared at him. Together, they went down the stairs.

"Asshole," Sarah said to Brent as she passed him. He gave her a "who, me?" look and then followed behind Kate.

There were a couple more people wandering around in the yard ˗ what had been Phil's yard ˗ but they were ignored. Mary was in the driver's seat of the SUV just as she had been when Sarah and Brent had left her there. She climbed into the back again where Jack and Kate joined. Sarah and Brent took the two front seats again, with Brent driving.

"What now?" Jack asked, still reeling from the news he'd received just a few minutes before. He looked around the vehicle.

"We drive," Brent said. "Find some place safe."

"Is there anywhere safe?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," Brent replied, taking the SUV down the long driveway and back onto the road. "I don't know."

Thomas North

Coming Fall 2012

Monday, October 1
^st

P
RIVATE FIRST CLASS Anthony “Tony” Capini stared down the sights of his Squad Automatic Weapon – abbreviated SAW by the troops – at the row of zombies staggering toward the base. He trained the weapon on each one, focusing his shot, his finger resting on the trigger guard ready to cut into the creatures one by one.

But he didn’t fire. They had clear instructions: only expend ammunition when the zombies were close enough to take down. Permanently. They weren’t close enough yet. Besides, there were only a half dozen of them, not enough to justify using the machine gun, as heartening as it was to see the creatures cut to pieces before being put out of their misery.

“That’s four today in flannel,” came the voice from beside him. Capini squinted, and through the freezing cold rain, saw the red and black checkered flannel shirt on the zombie. He looked to Specialist Matthews, the other soldier sitting with him behind the row of stacked sandbags, and laughed.

“Things must’ve broken into Robins’ house,” Capini replied with a grin, motioning toward one of the two troops behind the sandbags on the other side of the main road. The soldier grinned back and flipped him the bird, his middle finger enclosed in the soaked black leather of his glove.

Capini’s grin vanished when he turned his head back to the front of the base. The group of six zombies had grown by a dozen or more in the few moments they were horsing around, and more of the creatures, their clothes soaked and hanging off of their rotting bodies, were appearing from around the corner of the Mobil station across the street and from the drive-thru at the McDonald’s next to it. The growing army of pallid, walking corpses staggered toward the base with singular focus.

“Shit man, where do these things keep coming from?” Capini said, peering down the sights of the SAW again, this time planting his finger on the trigger. “I didn’t even think there were this many people in Vermont.”

“Go ahead,” Specialist Matthews told him.

Capini squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked in his grip, the familiar sulfuric smell wafted into his nostrils, and the brass shells flew through the air as the SAW thundered violently in his hands. He laid fire on the creatures in short, controlled bursts, and they began to jolt backwards and fall to the ground. The second SAW joined the fray, and soon they were firing in near-synchronization, the first weapon speaking, and the second answering its call, the line of zombies slowed under the barrage.

Specialist Matthews raised his M16 to his shoulder and fired, followed by the soldier across the road, and the two M16s joined the symphony of fire, adding a regular rhythm of single shots to the near-constant machine gunning. With the machine gun fire slowing the crowd, Specialist Matthews calmly aimed and fired at the heads of the creatures, pausing only to see the blood and brain matter spray from the zombie’s head before moving to the next one. Even with the constant fire, the creatures gained ground, falling less than a hundred feet from the rows of wire in front of the two fighting positions.

A half-naked woman with a silver ring in each her nipple, her left arm hanging on her body by a thread, stumbled toward their position ahead of the rest of the creatures. She was fifty feet away when Capini’s SAW fire tore into her stomach, her intestines spilling out of her gut and plopping near her feet. She tripped over the bloody appendage and stumbled as Matthews tried to get a clear shot at her head.

When it looked like the zombie would tumble nipple-rings over heels, she suddenly regained her balance, her intestines ripping away from her body. Matthews re-aimed, putting the iron sight directly over her forehead, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He stopped for a moment, dumbfounded, then glanced down at the weapon and felt the urge to kick himself. He dropped the empty gray magazine from the weapon, grabbed another from his vest, slammed it in and let the bolt slam forward. The nipple-ring zombie was barely fifteen feet away now, with several more of the creatures even closer. Capini was following their procedures to a tee, ignoring the nearest zombies and continuing to spray the crowd that followed behind.

The zombie, its long, jet-black hair waving in the wind, stepped into the first line of wire and became tangled, flailing its arms and legs, struggling to get free, the thin metal tearing into its dead flesh. Without bothering to aim, Matthews fired. The zombie’s brain flew out the back of its head, and it fell forward, even more of its innards spilling from the wound in its stomach and coming to rest on the wire below the body, hanging like a grotesque Christmas decoration.

Matthews didn’t stop to admire his work. More of the creatures were closing in, and he began aiming and firing again. He got into a groove and the creatures started dropping like ducks in a carnival game, some of the closest falling just a few feet from the wire. He had been playing catch up, but he was ahead now. After several more shots, the nearest zombies were on the ground, giving them more breathing room. He went through another magazine, and this time dropped it and inserted a new one in two quick, fluid motions.

He was halfway through that clip when he realized that the SAW fire had stopped. He lowered the weapon and looked out at the carnage, the bodies littering the land in front of the base like a Civil War battlefield.

“God damn, I think that was the biggest mob yet,” Capini said exhaustedly, letting go of the saw and slumping back against the sandbags.

Matthews nodded. “Another busy night for body detail. The fire will be hot today.”

A
GUARD STOPPED Sergeant Molina’s Humvee, checked the vehicle briefly, and then waved them on, continuing to wave as Brent pulled up. They continued into the parking lot and followed the lead Humvee and to the rear of the building. Brent waited while Molina parked neatly next two other vehicles, then exited along with his battle buddy. He signaled for Brent to pull forward, and guided him so the rear of the Humvee was just ahead of a door in the rear wall of the building, then signaled for him to stop. The other soldier disappeared into the building, while Molina came around to the window, which Brent rolled down, his face shielded this time, mostly, by the overhand of the building roof.

“You guys can come in if you want. Get a cup of coffee, something to eat if you want. I think they’re finishing up the night meal, so you might be able to grab something,” Molina told them. He loosened his hood for the first time and pulled it back, revealing his tan face and closely-cropped black hair under his gray patrol cap, the hat adorned with three chevrons, the mark of a Sergeant.

“What’s on the menu these days?” Brent asked.

Molina shrugged. “Food is one thing we have a lot of. We’ve gotta have enough to keep the civilians from going hungry too.”

“Yeah, I’d guess the yuppies aren’t eating gourmet anymore,” Brent replied.

Molina laughed. “Nope. They get whatever we get. It’s not gourmet, but it’s not too bad.”

Brent looked back at George and Jack. “Guys. Coffee, eats?”

They both nodded vigorously. “I think we’ll take you up on that offer, Sergeant Molina.” The soldier gave a friendly grin in response, and Brent, Jack and George got out of the vehicle and entered through the door, Molina walking in behind them.

They were greeted by the high ceiling and bright lights of a large school gymnasium. The bleachers were folded against the wall, but the space was still well-occupied: a green tent took up nearly half of the gym, and a row of tables that they were using to serve the meal that Molina had mentioned were along the opposite wall, though it looked like they were beginning to shut down the serving line. A variety tables, crates, and other items were also scattered throughout the area.

“Coffee’s over there,” Molina said, pointing to a smaller table beside the green tent, which held a stack of Styrofoam cups, two dark green containers, and some packets of powdered creamer. “Appreciate it,” Brent replied. George and Jack headed for the table, but Brent stayed behind, next to the sergeant.

“Hey Molina,” he said. “You heard anything? Any news? Anything about what’s going on out there?”

“Not really,” Molina replied. “Not lately anyway. Up ‘till four or five days ago we still had the Internet working. I e-mailed every day with my mom and sister back in Texas. They said things were pretty crazy, but their town had kinda hunkered down, and they were doing okay, at least last time I heard from them.”

“What about your other units?” Brent asked. “You’ve gotta still be in contact with them, right? Any scuttlebutt coming down the chain? Anything from the government? DOD?”

“Probably have to ask Colonel Spengler about that. I don’t think they share stuff like that with—“ He grimaced in pain and rubbed his head. A few seconds passed in silence, while Brent looked on. Molina seemed to be in real pain. “What were we just talking about?” he asked, looking at Brent again.

“Uhhh… we were talking about the news, and you were about to say that your Battalion Commander doesn’t share some things with you. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah fine,” the soldier replied. “I just been getting migraines sometimes lately.” He was sweating visibly, and wiped his brow with his sleeve.  “One of my buddies works in our six shop… our communications area… and he said we get reports from other Battalions sometimes, but nothing big,  just supply reports, casualty reports, some intel. Stuff like that.  Said some units are really low on supplies and aren’t getting anything replaced. The colonel goes out now and again to Brigade headquarters a few hours away. So I guess the unit is still functioning. ”

“Any rumors? Anything else?” Brent asked, pressing for more detail.

“My buddy, the same guy I just said, he said he heard the colonel and Major Whitaker saying that those things were in the White House and the President and Vice President are in some underground bunker or something, and all the other countries are even worse off than us.”

“That it?”

“Well…” Molina began, then looked down at his feet, embarassed. “Just some other rumors. Some of the guys think there is some kind of alien invasion.”

“Alien invasion huh?”

“Yeah… stupid shit like that. Alien invasion, government conspiracies, bio-weapons. But it’s just stuff the troops are making up or shit they read on the Internet before it went down. The stuff about the President and the other units, though, I think that’s probably real.”

Brent nodded. “Makes sense. How many people you got here?”

“Soldiers or civilians?”

“Both,” Brent replied.

“I think we got a few hundred soldiers,” Molina said. “And over seven hundred civilians. Well, living civilians anyway. We’ve pretty much secured the town from those creatures. The civilians stay inside mostly, but they come to us for food and if they need medical help or anything like that.” He paused. “What about you all? You guys hearing anything?”

Brent shook his head. “Nothing. We’re more cut off than you. Before we arrived here, we didn’t even know if there was an outside world left. Believe it or not, seeing you all here like this is good news for us.”

Molina laughed. “I can’t imagine that.”

“Imagine it,” Brent replied. “You’ve got a nice set up here compared to the shit at Camp Edwards.”

“Well I hope this all this ammo we’re giving you helps some. And hey, I gotta go check on that. You guys good for now?”

“Good,” Brent said. “Thanks for all the help. Thank Major Whitaker and your commander for us if we don’t see them.”

“Sure thing,” Molina replied. He walked across the gym and exited through a door into the building. Brent joined Jack and George and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“What were you two talking about?” Jack asked.

“Nothing really. I was just trying to see if they had any news.”

“And?”

“Not much worth a damn,” Brent replied. He went over what Sergeant Molina had told him with Jack and George.

“I wonder if we could just take the people from Camp Edwards and get them over here,” Jack said, filling his cup a second time. “They seem to have things figured out pretty well here.”

“Actually that’s not a terrible idea,” George replied. “I don’t think it can get much worse than Camp Edwards.”

“Except…” Jack began. “Anyone else think there’s something funky about Molina, and that other guy?”

“You mean that weird-ass way that Sergeant Molina and the major kept stopping in the middle of their sentences?” Brent asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

“That would be it.”

“Could just be exhausted,” George suggested. “I’ve worked twenty-four hour shifts before, sometimes longer. You start to get kinda batty by the end.”

“Could be it,” Brent said. “Hope there’s not some kind of virus going around here. Last thing I need is to be on my ass the next few days.”

“Guess we’ll find out if we get back to Camp Edwards and all get sick,” Jack replied. “It’ll be a small price to pay if we get all these bullets back there. Being sick probably beats getting eaten by those monsters.”