Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning (19 page)

“Son of a bitch!” I was yelling as I ran the zombie into the nearest wall, headfirst.

A carefully placed M-80 shoved in its mouth could not have equaled the damage I did when wall met skull. There was a moment of resistance before the bone plating yielded and the brain smacked wetly against the indifferent cement. Black matter, riddled with a wriggling worm-like infection, coated what was once a dry erase board. If only I could clean up the stain of them as easily. The brackish matter dripped down and pooled onto the small tray that held a
myriad of colored markers. I’d used enough force to nearly crush her head all the way down to her mouth; it slightly resembled a spent beer can under the heel of an overzealous drinker. The funny part—if you can call it that—about the whole thing was, as she was falling, her shoulder hit the edge of a chair and spun her over onto her back.

Her shirt was white and surprisingly clean for a monster, the words on her apparel clearly displayed for me on a bosom that I’d imagine would have earned me a smack upside the head from my wife in an earlier time:
Keep Calm and Zombie On
. I wondered if the morning she put that on she’d had some sort of precognition that she was going to end her day as her slogan read, or did it perhaps invoke that particular nasty outcome, somehow swaying the yet unknown fates, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Mr. T,” Tommy beseeched. He was still holding the door closed, his shoulder occasionally jumping as something big hit it. The only thing I could think of that would move him at all was a bulker. If that was the case, that door wasn’t going to hold for very long.

“Right…sorry,” I said, looking up from a girl who could very easily be my daughter’s age, tough to say with her face obliterated. Her lower jaw was all that remained on her face. A life cut so short…I hope she’d achieved at least a little of what she’d set out to do.

“Mr. T!” Tommy was actually pushed away from the door by a good few
inches, he leaned his shoulder in and moved his feet back to get into a better bracing position.

I think I was getting caught in a loop looking down at that girl, a girl who had parents that loved her. She was the face of all the wrong that had happened, and when I thought of it that way, it made me smile a sick, shriveled little thing that certainly didn’t crinkle the corners of my eyes. Deneaux would have been proud. I moved quickly, shoving furniture back into place that the simpering Mano had dragged away from the door earlier.

I had enough things in the room that I could have easily gone from end to end, but that would have entailed getting closer to the Yeti’s stronghold; I wasn’t game for that. I’d be in reach of his incredibly long arms if he decided to open his door and pull me in there with him. I could just see the fake “Ooops” expression on Deneaux’s face as she failed to fire her weapon in my aid, probably even put her hand up to her face, and I could also hear her explanation if I somehow survived. “Why Michael, I didn’t have a clear shot, I may have hit you, dear boy, and I just wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if that happened.” Mind you, this would be coming from the woman that could shoot the balls off a mosquito from thirty yards while she was riding a horse. Do mosquitoes have balls?

“What about him?” Deneaux asked. I was assuming she was talking about Mano, but she never turned to verify this. “You watch the door; I’ll take care of it.” Now she was pointing with her free hand toward him, confirming my earlier thinking.

Well, if I had any doubt about the bleakness of her heart, she’d just stomped that last vestige out.

“Wait a second before you go blowing a hole in him,” I said. This got Mano’s attention. He went from whimpering and gingerly touching the skin around his bite to looking directly at Deneaux, his eyes wide.

“Yeah, no holes,” he pleaded. “James, help me.”

James was still rocking his brother’s corpse back and forth, wailing to a deity who right now was not present. The way I saw it, Mano was still technically master of his own fate if that mean looking M-16 sitting on his waist was any sort of indicator. From his position, if he thought about it, he could maybe put five or six rounds in Deneaux before she could swivel his way. I quickly rethought my stance—it was even money. Bookies would have a field day with
this if there were such a thing as betting on duels. As it was, Mano had completely forgotten about his weapon.

“Aren’t you guys vaccinated or some shit?” I asked, looking for a way to save at least one life in this room of growing horrors.

Mano shook his head. “Only officers and VIPs.”

“Michael, if you won’t I will.”

“He’s got a few hours. Why are you in such a rush?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Odds are, none of has a couple of hours. I see no sense in adding the mark of his death to our souls.”

Deneaux was about to speak.

“Figure of speech, for all of us, I’m thinking,” I told her.

She smiled
, this one was real. I don’t think she believed she’d lost her soul, I just think she thought she’d never been encumbered with one.

“Very well.”

“Glad I could get your stamp of approval.” I turned back to the soldier. “Would a vaccine help now?”

“Not the vaccines,” he gulped. “I know they’re working on a cure though.” He looked hopeful.

“Working on one? Or have one. They have to have something because they treated and cured my son and friend. Where would they be?” I was beginning to scan the myriad of tables and cabinets.

“Not here.” James finally returned from the deep depths of mourning. He gently laid his brother down, stood and wiped his eyes. He was a warrior; he knew if there
was time later, he would give his brother the remembrance he deserved. “Hospital would be the place.”

“And where would that be?” It didn’t matter much—it could be the room next door, but we couldn’t get there.

“Other side of the facility.”

“Of course it is.”

“I can make it!” Mano offered feebly.

Well, if that doesn’t give you an indication of how scary Deneaux is, I don’t know what will. He was willing to brave ten thousand zombies alone rather than her. I guess that…and the fact he now had the virus in him.

“He tries to open that door, I’ll kill him.” Deneaux still hadn’t looked at him. Her eyes were glued on our other adversary’s avenue of approach.

Mano had pulled his pant leg up. I could see thick, black-red tendrils sprouting from the wound, heading to his heart and brain. The virus was spreading and quickly; even as I watched it moved up past his knee and out of sight, buried beneath the camouflage material.

“Get it out!” Mano wailed, looking at all of us. “I’ve got to go try!” he pleaded.

“You won’t make it,” James told him.

“I have to try, man, I have to.”

“I know you do. I know,” James told him.

“Th-thank you,” Mano blubbered, heading for the door where Tommy was stationed.

What happened next…I saw it and I barely believe it. Mano had no sooner turned his back
when James reached down and pulled his sidearm out, a Colt 1911. He shot Mano with a .45 caliber bullet straight through his spine. Smoke wisps trailed up as Mano fell down.

“I’m so sorry,” he told Mano as he shot him again, this time in the head to make sure he was down for good and not suffering. He just stared at the body.

“There’s a man that knows how to take charge.”

“Not now, Deneaux,” I told her.

Even Tommy looked surprised, and I had to imagine he’d seen worse.

“It had to be done.” I think James said this more for his own sake than ours, but Tommy tried to comfort him as best he could.

“Then there were four,” Deneaux said with her usual cackle. I wondered how many times she’d probably played this little game in her life; and, inexplicably, she always ended up as the last man standing. I wanted to tell her she was a sick fuck, but she’d probably like that.

“Deneaux, do you have an angle on that lock?” I was whispering.

“Why are you whispering?” Then she added, “Really? Do you really think what is back there can understand you?”

“Are you willing to take that chance?”

“Fine, your game, I’ll play until it isn’t amusing anymore.” She lowered her voice. “Yes, I do. Why?”

“I can feel it in every fiber of my being…that
thing
is watching us. Can you get a shot off and drill it in its fucking eye?”

“From here? I could put the bullet through the center of a penny.”

The lock hole was much bigger, more like a silver dollar, according to Deneaux this was like a three-yard field goal attempt in football. Or for you European types, a free kick without a goalie. If I was taking the shot, I would have propped the weapon up on something stable and unmoving, lined it up for half a minute, and most likely would have had my tongue firmly clenched in my teeth as I concentrated hard enough to burst a blood vessel in my eye before taking the shot. I like to think I’m a decent shot, at least with a rifle…and still, the odds I would make this shot under the current circumstances were fifty-fifty; with a pistol that would have dropped down to about ten percent, and that one-in-ten chance would be attributed to sheer luck.

Deneaux took maybe half a heartbeat longer to aim and fire, but that could have been because her exhalation of smoke was clouding her vision. All hell broke loose when that round left the chamber. The beast beyond the door howled in rage and pain when he—or it—was struck. It sounded like the thing was tossing Chevys around the room. I fully expected
the adjoining wall to collapse and the thing to come hurtling through at any moment. Even the unflappable Deneaux got off her perch and behind a desk. Not that this was going to stop that thing, for her it was just the perceived safety.

“I think you got him,” I said, holding my rifle up firmly to my shoulder, waiting for it to come.

I wished it would get it over with, as the anticipation was not a good one. I had adrenaline prickles running the length of my arms, shoulders and torso. My body was under the firm belief that I should be getting the hell out of here, and I agreed.

“Whatever gave you that impression?” Deneaux answered wryly.

“Just a hunch.” A loud thump to our backs was fighting to grasp my undivided attention. “Tommy?” I asked, not daring to turn.

“Bulkers.”

“I love today. How in the hell was I better off in my cell?”

“Oh, dearie, it’s just your mind’s way of telling you where you belong.”

The bulkers were, I believe, attracted to the noise our “friend” was making, and somehow I got the impression that was what it meant to do. A normal, enraged, wounded animal would have charged. That’s just the nature of an ordinary creature. Kill what is threatening it; hell, that’s a normal human response. Not this thing, no, we had to get a damn animal that had studied the
Art of War
. It knew…it just fucking knew it could not come at us directly, that to do so would spell its doom.

The pile of furniture jumbled as bulkers once again took a go at our door. A cabinet overturned and a chair skittered across the floor, finally resting on the far wall.

“The hinges are starting to show signs of stress,” James said.

Tommy nodded when I dared take a quick glance at him for confirmation.

“We need to shut Sasquatch up, he’s attracting them,” I said, although I had not an iota of a plan to back my words up with.

“I would imagine a good meal would keep him preoccupied for a while.” Deneaux was looking at me.

“I guess that leaves you out,” I said, referring to the stringy, tough meat Deneaux would yield.

She got it. For a second I thought she was going to stick out her tongue at me.

Another battering, and furniture spilled like a moving van filled with a homeowner’s goods driven by pissed off underpaid employees, so yeah, basically every mover ever. James and Tommy were trying to rebuild our barricade, but that was going to matter little if the door came unhinged. Periodically the Abominable Snowman would screech this ear-piercing sound. I think, if he kept it up, I would have gladly offered myself to it just to escape the din.

For a second that seemed pre-ordained, I mean it had to be, the timing was just too incredulous,
the Yeti had stopped screaming. Whatever he had been smashing had finally broken, and there was a blissful second where he was quiet. The bulkers had stopped to regroup before once again attacking the door, so, for just this small window, there was a blaring quiet, if that makes sense. This was shattered with the metallic sound of a door hinge bouncing off the tile floor. All of our gazes were torn to that small, cylindrical piece of metal like it was the key to the universe and technically, for us, it sort of was. Then the cacophony started anew.

“Well, that doesn’t bode well.”

“How dare you call your son Captain Obvious,” Deneaux said.

“I really wish I could figure out how not to always speak my mind. Anybody holding on to an idea…now might be a fantastic time to let the rest of us know.”

“Mr. T, I think I can get that door open before the animal can react.”