Forest Park: A Zombie Novel (36 page)

Outside of the bunker’s blast doors, something strange began to happen.

The men and women of the armed forces began to leave. They wanted to find their families, to make their own decisions on how to deal with what appeared to be the end of everything.

What is the point? They began to ask themselves with good reason.

Whom are we protecting?

Helicopters began to disappear from Turner Field, and armored vehicles now failed to return to the barracks. The soldiers were becoming civilians once again. They were saying goodbye to the old way of life, while their leaders struggled to understand the new world and held on tightly to the old. They continued to remain buried beneath millions of tons of concrete, and pointing their fingers at each other while taking transcriptions for the historical record.

Ambrose rose from his seat and wandered over to Harris.

Nobody noticed him move as another fierce debate began and the digital recorders followed the proceedings.

Whispering in Harris’s ear, Ambrose told him, “I’m leaving.”

“I for one don’t blame you,” Harris said.

As both men walked from the room, Gibson reached for a phone.

“Where do they think they’re going?” Carnegie said. “There is nothing more important than what is happening here. Don’t they understand that we’re at a critical point in the crisis? This is the moment in history the world will remember.”

Gibson glared at the general.

THE FENCE

Steve had no idea what he should do.

I can’t save her by myself, he thought as he looked at his unconscious wife.

The fence appeared a mile high from where he stood gazing up at the razor wire.

He could barely think straight as he knelt beside Kathy and brushed the hair from her face.

“Steve.”

“What?” he answered, sounding disconnected.

“Let’s do this,” Tyler said, overlooking him; gripping his arm.

“Where’s Cook?” Steve asked.

“He’s buying us time. We’re going to need it too,” Tyler said as he reached upward with his good arm.
It’s not so high.

“With a little effort we can do this, but we have to move fast,” he said as he saw more of the Dead walking toward them on the other side of the fence.

Steve didn’t answer Tyler, he only fell dejectedly into the fence.             

Behind them came the sound of shambling feet. And Steve didn’t care.

Cook rounded the corner of the alleyway and stumbled into the rear car park, looking exhausted. “You guys are going to have to hurry,” he said as he withdrew closer toward them, the Dead things hot on his heels.

Cook needed some breathing space; this was hard work. How did the big guy do it? He thought as he glanced at Steve seated alongside the fence, looking crestfallen.

“What’s wrong with the big guy?”

“Nothing I can’t fix,” Tyler said as he simultaneously tried to figure out how to climb over to the other side.

If I go over first, maybe Steve can pass her to me.

Except the razor wire, how can we get over the razor wire?

Can I climb?

He didn’t know, but there was nothing else left to do but try.

Then an idea dawned on him. “Steve.” He didn’t answer. “Steve, boost me up.”

“What?”

Tyler grasped Steve by the shirt and shoved him against the fence.

“Wake up, we need to move out. Boost me to the top and then pass Kathy up to me,” he said. “I’ll lower her down to the other side.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t want to let her go. I’ll carry her over.”

“You can’t climb with her, and I can’t lift her to you if you climb first. She’ll be fine, I promise you.”

“I don’t know,” Steve said.

“Well, I do,” Tyler said sounding more confident than he had in a very long time.

“But she’ll be alone on the other side of the fence, what about---”

“Being over the other side is better than being on this side.”

“You can hold her with your arm?”

“I’m telling you I can.”

Cook bashed another Dead freak with the fat end of the bat, ripping its forehead wide open.

The alley before him was now, in essence, full of snarling creatures, lumbering forward with arms out stretched. Their stench was incredible; blood, faeces and urine intermixed with putrefying flesh.

Cook gave ground and then rapidly charged at the Dead things, hoping to keep them at bay through intimidation, but the Dead knew no fear. Soon they would be free from the confines of the alley where their source of power and their numbers would sway the battle.

Steve knelt to the ground, giving Tyler a platform to elevate himself. Ignoring the razor wire, Tyler clung to the fence as Steve began to stand, boosting Tyler high enough to lift his leg over its apex.

Tyler’s arm began to pulse faster than ever; he was beginning to feel faint.

He closed his eyes for a moment in an attempt to regain his focus as he sat astride the fence.

“Pass her up,” he eventually said, knowing time was short. The razor wire began cutting deep into his inner thighs with every movement, and seemingly, every breath.

Steve scooped Kathy into his arms and lifted her into Tyler’s waiting hand.

“A little higher, I can’t get a good grip,” he said, his voice straining with exertion as he used every ounce of strength. He had to lift Kathy safely over.

The pain was nearly unendurable. With every turn of his upper body the razor wire entrenched itself deeper.

Tyler forced his legs together as he tried to fight back the rising tide of pain, and not overbalance.

“I nearly have her,” he said.

Steve heaved her skyward once more. “Make sure you do.” He groaned, and then suddenly her weight was lifted from him.

Steve looked up and saw Tyler cradling Kathy in his arms.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked him. Even in the darkness, he looked pale.

“Sure…” Tyler answered him. Then he blacked out.

Cook couldn’t hold them back for much longer.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Tyler holding Kathy in his arms; they needed more time.

Running forward, Cook once more swung as hard as he could, but this time the bat must have missed by inches, and he fell to the ground after sliding on the loose gravel and gore under his feet. Forest Park’s last police officer landed with a bone-jarring thud, losing the bat on the way down.

Oh, God!

Cook strained to lift himself as he felt something grab at his leg! They were surrounding him. He rolled to the side and attempted to raise himself on one knee but his back began to spasm as a Dead circle closed around him.

The bat!

Where’s the bat? His mind raced.

Something has my arm.

He could feel himself being hauled away.

“Where the fuck is it?”

Another Dead thing wrenched at his leg.

Then he touched it.

“The bat!”

“He could feel it with the tips of his fingers; he tried to reach a little further.

He jostled the end of the bat.

“I’m nearly there.”

Then he had it.

Wrapping his hand around the fat bottom of the bat, Cook tugged it toward himself as he kick-pushed another Dead thing away.

His fingers ran along it, searching for the thinner handle, but then … nothing.

The bat was in two parts, and now the handle lay against the fence next to the building.

He didn’t miss, the bat must have snapped in two on the blow before.

Officer Cook, realizing there was no other alternative, closed one hand to a tight fist while the other grasped the blunt end of the bat.

There was no escape.

“Bring it on,” he said. “Bring it on.”

FAMILY REUNION

Kathy’s eyes opened. She was resting on something soft --- a body. The searing burning sensation from earlier was gone.

“Kathy...”

Turning her head to the side, Kathy saw Steve looking at her. Her husband was on his knees, and his exhausted face was pressed to the wire fence between them. Kathy smiled. “I’m okay,” she said.

“I know,” he answered her.

“How did I get on this side of the fence?” she asked him.

“You climbed,” he said.

“You’re such a liar.”

Neither said anything for a moment.

“Cook needs your help,” Kathy unexpectedly said, not knowing it was already too late for him.

“What about you, will you be okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Everything will be all right,” he said to her.

“Everything always was.”

When Steve got to his feet, it quickly became apparent that nothing could be done to save Cook.

In front of him was a writhing mountain of the Dead, one piled upon another, each searching for the thing to alleviate the wretchedness of whatever drove them, the soothing flesh.

Cook was gone; he couldn’t see his little friend either.

Then suddenly, the rest of the Dead homed in on Steve’s signal. They sensed another meal.

Steve’s first response was to climb.

He couldn’t fight them, he had nothing to fight them with and nor could he frighten them away; they didn’t scare.

His only choice was to climb.

He attempted to gain a foothold in the small holes of the fence, but he was too big and the soles of his boots too thick. I’m too fucking fat!

Reaching in desperation, Steve clutched at the razor wire and tried to pull himself up as a lone Dead thing stumbled forward, freeing itself from the interlocked, Undead mob.

Steve let go, cocked his fist back, and punched the zombie, sending it backward toward the throbbing mass while Steve fell awkwardly sideways.

Unbalanced, Steve tripped and stumbled toward the back wall of the building.

He tried to regain his balance, but his accelerated momentum made it impossible.

Steve clutched at the fence, searching for some support, but instead, his fingers dug into the earth. His sense of orientation was in tatters.

The pack rolled immediately toward him like an unstoppable king tide.

Another monster approached him fast.

Steve pushed himself backward to where the building met the fence, his hands searching for anything that might be of advantage to him.

He desperately needed more time. Then he found what he was after, the broken handle of the bat. “You haven’t let me down yet.”

The leading zombie toppled over its own feet with excitement. Its misplaced step launched forward to its hands and knees. Instead of walking, it had now began crawling, while the masses of the pack were swift to gain ground.

Steve could see fragments of flesh caught between the fallen things yellow teeth as it crawled on its shredded belly. Its eyes were feral and beyond the realm of humble hate. They were now beyond the concept of emotions.

Steve held the broken handle to his chest and aimed its fractured, jagged point toward the oncoming ghoul.

Moments later, the pack fell on him as he screamed.

Kathy watched in horror as Steve disappeared among the Dead. She could hear him screaming. Kathy had never heard her husband sound like that before. “Stop it! Please stop it. STEVE!”

Tyler’s eyes opened to a world where he felt so much pain that he couldn’t reconcile it. He felt someone on top of him. Kathy?

He pulled himself out from underneath her.

He couldn’t see Cook or Steve, but he could hear someone screaming.

Oh, no, they’re gone.

Kathy, without thinking, attempted to sit upright. She wanted to see Steve, or at least try to.

“Stay down,” Tyler said as he struggled to get to his feet. “I’ll help you; we have to move, Kathy.”

“I don’t want to go.”

He reached down and tried to lift her with his good arm. She forced him to let her go with whatever strength she had. He tried again. “We have to leave!”

“Steven, hurry!”

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

“Not without Steve.”

“He’s finished, Kathy!”

“No he isn’t,” she insisted.

“If you’re staying, then I am too,” he said.

As the Dead thing launched at his throat, Steve shoved the fractured handle into its eye as another creature stamped on his foot, and then another on his thigh.

He pulled the broken handle from the Dead thing’s skull and shoved himself further backward, desperate to escape.

He could feel one of the things biting down hard on his boot.

Steve forced himself further back as the Dead began to tower over him, obliterating the clouded night sky.

He didn’t want to die.

Then, unexpectedly he fell and suddenly found himself flat on his back halfway through the fence.

He could now see the clouded night sky once more.

Steve kicked out with his boot and knocked one of the Dead things to the jaw. He then kicked for a second time and used the dead mass as a launching pad to escape.

He now spun around and dug the broken handle into the ground to use it like a climbing axe. Moments later, he dragged himself clear.

The ghouls now jammed themselves into the corner of the building and fence. They couldn’t bend to crawl through the hole because of their vast numbers.

It was a bottleneck, like gridlock!

He then saw Susan in the background.

BUNKER

Both Ambrose and Harris strode with a hurried pace through the bustling concrete tunnels that led to the PCC and its outer situation rooms.

Eyeing a spare golf cart, they both climbed in, beating an Air force officer by seconds.

“Just fucking take it-, screw you,” the officer said as the two men drove away.

“It’s all over,” Harris said, stunned by the officer’s reaction.

“So how do we get out of here?” Ambrose asked.

“I have a helicopter outside. However, there are no more we…” Harris said as they headed toward the surface.

“Then what, what now?” asked Ambrose.

“That’s up to you, you’re a free man.”

“May I speak freely then?” Ambrose asked.

“Yes.”

“I think what you’ve all done is beyond abhorrent. It’s inexcusable, and I will make sure you’ll hang for it if we live through this, even if I have to do it myself.”