Killer Z (17 page)
J
uliet
runs
a fingertip over the plastic cover of her dad’s identification card and then
tucks it back in her pocket. She sits on a mat in the far corner of the
conference room. Next to her Harry lays stretched out on his map, oblivious to
the terrible odor coming from the hallway.
“Harry, are you asleep?”
Eyes closed, Harry grunts, “Yes.”
She’s quiet a moment, then asks,
“Do you think it was necessary for them to round up the druggies?”
“I do” he says, rolling over to
put his back to her. “They were going to turn into zombies and eat us.”
“What are they doing with the
prisoners?”
“I don’t know. In Korea we had to execution them.”
“How bad would one of those bites
hurt?”
“I don’t want to find out. Stop
yapping so I can get napping.”
“Sorry. I’m tired but just can’t
sleep.”
A figure pauses at the doorway of
the dark conference room. His face is obscured in shadow. A chill ripples
through her. Someone behind the figure runs in the hallway but the figure
doesn’t move.
“Can I help you with something?”
Juliet asks.
“I really need some sleep,” Harry
mumbles but opens his eyes.
The figure hastily turns around
and disappears down the hallway. Harry sits up, suddenly alert.
“The guy didn’t look right. Harry,
do you hear running?”
Screams erupt in the hallway
outside followed by the popping of a gun and feet pounding in the hallway.
“Juliet, get ready to run.”
Harry hands Juliet the shotgun and
checks the pistol at his waist. The figure reappears in the doorway. Juliet can
make out his police officer’s uniform. A wound on his upper arm drips blood on
the floor. She notes his gun is missing and brings up the shotgun as he breaks
into a run straight for them.
“Shoot it!” Harry barks like a
drill sergeant.
Boom
.
The blast of the shotgun slams her
shoulder. The zombie stumbles back as the buckshot catches it in the Kevlar
protected chest. She dumbly looks at it as it continues to advance forward.
“Pump the shotgun,” Harry yells.
She fumbles and finally fires
again.
Boom
.
The second blast shakes her like
the first but this time she braces her legs. The zombie’s face becomes a red
pulpy mass. A zombie wearing a Red Cross t-shirt leaps over the fallen cop. She
pumps the shotgun but there are no more shells.
Pop pop pop
.
Juliet
jumps and drops the shotgun as bullets thud into the zombie’s face. Harry
points to a bolted door labeled Emergency Exit and runs with Juliet following.
The vet slides back the bolt and pulls open the door to a fire escape.
“Ladies first.”
“Is it safe to go out there?”
“It’s not safe in here.”
“I’m scared,” she says as they
climb down the slippery steps, “I feel like shit for leaving everyone.”
“There’s
nothing we can do for them. I’m thinking we should try the sewers.”
“Eww,
nasty,” she says as they move through the filthy streets.
Juliet
pauses and scrapes mud off from the bottom of her shoes against a piece of
concrete jutting from the sidewalk. Harry keeps walking, thinking she’s right
behind him.
“Ugh, these were my favorites,”
she mutters.
Her
skin breaks out into goose bumps. A human hand sticks out of the mud from a
nearby pile of debris. She starts to run to Harry but stops abruptly. A huge
air craft carrier deposited by the tsunami looms over destroyed buildings in
the middle Constitutional Avenue. Large white stenciled letters spell out USS
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
“Harry?”
“Over
here,” he says from near the carrier’s hull. “I think we can get around on this
side.”
Bloated corpses dot the mud along
the carrier as if the seamen leaped from the craft. Hundreds of flies buzz
around the dead bodies.
“Harry, do you see this?”
The
corpses stuck in the mud shift as the zombies react to their voices. Harry
discharges the gun as a fast moving zombie rushes at him covered in muck. At
Juliet’s feet chunks of wet mud slide from a zombie’s face and reveal a
familiar face.
“Dad?”
Riley’s eyes are missing as if
they’ve been pecked out by a bird. Shaking her head in disbelief she backpedals
and slips in the mud. She freezes as he reaches for her.
“Dad!”
“Riley?” Harry stammers from ten
feet away. Move zombies rise and Harry fires until the gun clicks empty.
“Dad, no!” Juliet wails as she
flails her arms in the mud. Riley grabs Juliet’s leg and inhumanly strong
fingers dig into her flesh.
“He isn’t your dad anymore!”
“Harry, help me!”
Riley’s teeth tear deeply into her
leg and gnaw into the flesh. The hot tearing sensation is followed by a burst
of pain as teeth sink into bone.
“Juliet!” Harry screams as a mud
covered zombie seizes his leg.
A second pain explodes in Juliet’s
left arm as a second zombie tears into her flesh.
“NO!” Harry yells as he stomps on
the zombie grabbing him.
A
sense of serenity fills the ravished girl. There’s no pain as she dies, only
the sensation of tugging and pulling.
“Over here,” a voice hisses.
Harry sees a soldier covered in
mud covertly waving at him from the Iwo Jima memorial. Harry scrambles up the
base of the memorial and crouches down beside him. On the muddy street zombies
slowly pull themselves from the muck.
“Sorry about the girl. I’m Private
Laramie,” the soldier whispers.
“Harry. What’s your story
Private?”
“Not much to tell. I was on search
and rescue and we went down. Been trying to get out of the city ever since. Was
the girl your daughter?”
“No.” Harry closes his eyes a
moment. “I just knew her dad.”
A knot lodges in his throat as he
looks back and sees Juliet rise as a zombie.
“I’ve been trying to get somewhere
high to radio in for a pickup,” Laramie says.
“The Old Post Office is intact,
but there are zombies there.”
“We’ll have to try it,” Laramie says.
They creep through the devastated
streets avoiding the undead. Multiple
cracks
from a high power
gunman rings through the block as they near the Old Post Office.
“Take cover,” Laramie hisses as
they drop down behind a turned over truck.
“Harry, is that you? Get your ass
over here!” a gunman yells from a destroyed building.
Harry recognizes Larry’s voice and
rushes to the window. The cop lowers his rifle and allows them to enter.
Harry whistles softly. “Damn,
Larry, did you raid an armory?” He drops the empty pistol and picks up a Glock
9 mm sitting on the table.
“Take what you want,” Larry
grunts, then looks closely at Laramie.
“You’re the marine from the
hospital who left me to die!” Larry accuses, pointing his rifle at the soldier.
“Hey man, be cool,” Laramie says. “We had no way of knowing that hospital was full of Zs. Our orders were to
pick up survivors and drop them off, that’s it. You’re lucky we left you
behind, some fuckers at the National Portrait Gallery fired on us and we went
down.”
“What happened to your buddies?”
Larry asks and lowers the rifle.
“Probably munching brains right
now,” Laramie says grimly.
Larry grunts, then turns back to
the window and aims the rifle. “Well I’ve been watching the entrance to the
Post Office, waiting for this bunch of piss ant gangster wannabes, but haven’t
seen anything but zombies.”
The cop takes aim and shoots a
zombie entering the block. There are a lot of bullet ridden zombies. Laramie takes an AK-47 from a pile of weapons on the floor and takes position at the
window.
“What do we have here?” Larry
asks.
A group of armed men emerge from a
side street. Two men being chased by zombies enters from another. They converge
in front of the Old Post Office. The armed men open fire on the zombies.
“That’s
over nine armed hostiles and at least thirty zombies. I’m really getting tired
of serving and protecting. What are the odds there are still people inside?”
Larry asks.
“The
roof of that building is the only way to get a lift before the nukes come,” Laramie says.
“Nukes?”
Harry asks but is cut off as the three men watch the front doors of the post
office burst open and survivors pour out over the steps. The armed men lift
their guns at both the people fleeing and the zombies.
“Well
this is a cluster fuck. We need to help them,” Harry says.
“It
would be suicide. Let’s just get out of here,” Larry mutters.
“I
agree with Harry. We have high ground and superior fire power,” Laramie says.
“Damn
Samaritan hearts. You guys have a plan?” Larry asks.
H
eart pounding, Fred is overcome with guilt for
killing Kyle. He drops the hammer to the floor and slumps against the door. The
darkness terrifies him but he’s comforted knowing the zombies can’t reach him.
Minutes pass like hours. He hears someone on the other side of the door and
catches his breath.
“Is someone in here?” Mark
whispers and knocks on the door.
“C’mon Mark,” Angela says. “Why
would someone be in a closet?”
“The zombies might not have gotten
everyone.”
“Is somebody home?” Angela asks
and knocks on the door.
Fred picks up the hammer and
answers, “I’m in here.”
“What?” Angela asks.
“I told you,” Mark says and opens
the door.
“Fred!” Mark says.
“Hey,” Fred mutters and steps out
of the closet, hammer in hand.
“I thought you died when I found
Kyle,” Mark says.
“I wasn’t that lucky.”
“We’re getting out of here,” Mark
says. “We ditched the zombies on the sixth floor so it’s now or never.”
Numbly, Fred nods.
A
half-eaten guard in the doorway leading to the prisoner’s room lifts itself to
wobbly feet. Fred tears his gaze from the sight and follows Angela to the
stairs as Mark impatiently holds the door open. The trio descends the stairs,
carefully avoiding still corpses on the way.
“Do you think anyone’s left
alive?” Angela asks.
“Becket’s pretty tough,” Mark says.
“Do you have any weapons?” Fred
asks.
“I have my dad’s gun,” Mark
answers.
“Shit,
quiet!” Mark curses low as they reach the last flight of stairs. In the lobby
below, zombies feast on half dead victims with their backs to the trio.
A man
standing on a desk near the base of the stairs swings a broom at group of
zombies. Their outstretched hands pull his feet out from under him and he
tumbles to the floor. The undead descend on the screaming man and Mark
stealthily leads them to the front doors. Only one door is free of chains. A
zombie sprints towards them. Mark shoots it in the chest with a
pop
but it doesn’t do anything.
“Stand back,” Fred says.
Fred
raises the hammer over his head and swings. He splits the zombie’s face in two.
Bone and tissue splatter on the door. He swings again and this time exposes
chunks of brain. The creature crumples to the floor and they flee outside.
As he
clears the door, Fred’s jaw drops. Seth and the remaining thugs are aiming guns
at them. Two armed men usher them away from the entrance as a third shuts the
door. Around the base of the steps are countless dead zombies and survivors.
Among the murdered are Becket and Louie.
“Drop your guns or die,” Seth
says.
“I should have stayed in the
closet,” Fred mutters but doesn’t drops the hammer.
Four women and three men kneel on
the filthy cement, held at gun point. Mark drops his gun.
“Putain de merde,” Seth says.
“Where the hell is Lin?”
“Your partner is inside,” Fred
says.
M2 moves to collect the
dropped gun as Seth rages, “Then where are my pills!”
“We destroyed them,” Angela spits.
Seth’s mad eyes roam over Angela.
Her image blurs in front of him for a moment.
“Are you the bitch from Burger
Baron?” Seth asks.
“What?” Angela asks.
“What bitch are you talking about,
Seth?” M2 asks.
“You thought you could knee me,
cunt? But who’s the man now?” Seth screams as he reaches out and grabs her by
handful of hair.
“Where’s the Killer Z?” M2
demands, and jabs Mark in the gut with the butt of his rifle.
Seth drags Angela down the steps
ignoring the thugs questioning looks.
“Unhand the girl immediately or be
shot down!” a voice calls out.
Harry confidently strides towards
the armed men. The gang forgets about Mark and Fred as they gape at the cocky
vet. Harry stops in between two overturned vehicles.
“I’m unarmed,” Harry says, “But
there are snipers behind me and they will shoot you if you fail to comply.”
“You’re the fucker who broke my
arm!” Andrew shrieks.
Crack
.
Andrew’s eyes widen in shock as
his chest bursts open. The others stare, stunned and frozen.
“Unhand the girl and let the
others go!”
One of the thugs lifts his rifle.
Crack
.
“Now
there are only seven of you left,” Harry says with a smile as the thug falls
dead. “Let them go!”
Seth ignores everybody except
Angela. He uses her as a shield and backs into the shadowy recess of the second
arch.
“Seth, where are you going?” M2
asks.
The others look at M2 for orders.
The impersonator lifts his gun and
shouts, “Kill them and find the Killer Z!”
Crack crack
, Larry shoots down two more
thugs.
Harry ducks behind a car as M2’s
bullets fly at his head. He takes out the 9mm from his belt while M2 dodges
behind the wrecked double-decker bus for cover. Gunfire fills the street as the
remaining thugs open fire.
Mark flings himself at a discarded
gun. M2 and two brutes run to cars near Harry and flank him. Laramie emerges
from behind a tilted tree and shoots his rifle into one of the three men
pinning the vet. The other thug returns fire, catching Laramie in the chest.
Fred’s stomach sickens as the
death toll rises. The zombies in the building spill onto the steps. He throws
himself over the railing and lands in water logged hedges.
Seth pries open the bus door and
drags Angela into the vehicle.
“Get your hands off me,” Angela
shrills as Seth spins her around, his hands tearing at her skirt.
Larry runs onto the street with
two 9mms drawn and a duffle bag flapping against his back. He shoots a few
downed thugs in the head before they turn.
Harry
dashes from the car to the bus. M2 fires wildly and wounds Harry on the thigh.
The vet focuses only on saving Angela and takes another three steps.
“Don’t
you walk away from me, whitey!” M2 yells and shoots his last bullets into
Harry’s back.
Larry
aims at M2 just as a zombie child leaps on the impersonator. M2 shrieks in pain
as the little girl tears into his jugular. Larry adjusts his aim and shoots the
zombie child in the head but lets M2 drown in his own gurgling blood.
Fred
bravely runs into the bus. Inside Seth backhands Angela to the floor. Around
them zombie children fastened in their seatbelts reach out and groan. Seth
blinks in confusion as Fred enters the bus and points his gun.
“Get
off her!” Fred yells as he barrels through the aisle.
“You’re
a dead man,” Seth snarls and shoots, but the gun clicks empty.
He
deflects Fred’s hammer with the empty pistol, sending the tool flying out of a
window. They struggle in hand to hand combat as the zombies grab at them. With
a burst of fear born adrenaline, Fred tosses Seth from the bus
Outside
Larry and Mark dispatch the remaining thugs and zombies as Fred deals with
Seth. Seth slugs him in the jaw but Fred doesn’t feel it. He hits Seth with an
upper cut and the man flies backwards. Fred picks up his hammer from the
ground.
Seth
coughs and struggles to get up. Clip-clops echo through the block as a hellish
neigh freezes everyone.
The
zombie horse stops in the middle of the street and rears up as it gives another
blood curdling neigh. Behind the beast groans the horde. Seth shrieks in terror
as the horse looks at him and charges. He lifts his hands in defense as it
chomps into his right shoulder and savagely rips off his arm.
Mark
and Larry rush into the bus.
“Are
you ok?” Mark asks as he helps Angela to her feet. She nods, shaken and
bruised, but focused.
“Let’s
get to the roof of the bus,” Larry says as he pushes past them.
Shaking
off the shock of the sight, Fred dashes forward with the hammer. He sweeps the
blunt weapon at the horse’s front leg, shattering it above the knee. The horse
pitches forward. He reverses the hammer and smashes the horse’s rear leg,
crippling it further.
Multiple
gunshots and the sound of breaking window glass rattle through the street as
Larry shoots zombie children in the bus. Near Fred’s feet M2’s body convulses
and he backs up. The approaching horde is deafening. He tucks the hammer in his
tool belt and scrambles in the bus and tries shutting the door as dozens of
zombies launch themselves at the stranded vehicle.