Zombie Anthology (2 page)

    
He glanced around and saw instantly that Luke's power was off like his own. He picked up an open pack of smokes which lay on the T.V. stand beside an over-flowing ashtray and helped himself to one. He hadn't smoked since high school but he figured now was as good a time as any to start back. Lighting up, he took a deep drag and coughed like a kid. He shoved the cigarette into the ashtray and ground it out, then headed towards Luke's bedroom. He prayed that old man hadn't passed away during the night. Jeremy and Luke weren't exactly close. Luke was too old fashioned to let his feelings show with anyone, but Jeremy had got on well with him. He liked the old man a lot. No one else could make you smile in the way that he did. Jeremy knew he couldn't have asked for a better
neighbour
.

    
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremy caught a glimpse of someone or something outside, moving around the house. “Luke?” he called again, picking up the ashtray from the T.V. stand and weighing it in his hand. Not his weapon of choice, but it was better than nothing and he imagined it would hurt like hell to have it smashed into your nose. He wasn't taking any chances. There was too much strange shit going on. He heard the back door of the house creak open and slam shut.

    
Suddenly, Luke came tearing out of the bedroom. He made no sound but his eyes were wide and a snarl smeared itself across his wrinkled face. He threw himself at Jeremy in a desperate rage. Jeremy barely managed to dodge the old man. He'd never seen move so fast.

    
Luke crashed into the T.V. stand and went down onto his hands and knees onto the floor with a thud. “Luke!” Jeremy shouted. “It's me! Jeremy!” Luke's head darted around and he stared up at Jeremy with a bloodshot, hungry gaze. Jeremy lashed out, kicking the old man from underneath, straight up into Luke's stomach. Luke let out a grunt, rolling over from the blow. Jeremy dropped on him, pinning back his withered arms over his head in an effort to restrain him. “Luke, please."

    
Luke raised his head up enough to snap at Jeremy with his teeth like a mad dog. Luke was incredibly strong somehow. Jeremy was forced to let go and rolled away from the old man but not quickly enough to avoid Luke from raking a long gash into his arm beneath the sleeve of his Rush t-shirt with his fingernails. Jeremy winced at the pain, gritting his teeth, then Luke was on him again. Before he even realized what he was doing, Jeremy snatched up the dropped ashtray and brought it down on Luke's skull. The crunch of bone reverberated throughout the room as Luke went limp and fell over.

    
Jeremy stood there in shock. He felt sick and his whole body shook with adrenalin and disgust. Jeremy noticed the blood and gray hair that clung to the side of the ashtray and it slipped from his grip, clattering to the floor beside Luke. There was no doubt that the old man was dead. Blood poured from the caved in indention on his scalp. Tears welled up in Jeremy's eyes as he unconsciously rubbed at the wound on his own arm where Luke's nails had gotten him. Jeremy fell onto the couch and sat there, staring at the dead television set, in a daze.

    
Hours later, Jeremy placed the beer bottle he just emptied onto the T.V. table beside its twins. The beer had been warm but it was still good. You could always count on old Luke to have the essentials stocked up in the fridge. Thinking of Luke caused Jeremy to lean over and vomit into the floor in front of where he sat on the couch. Luke's body had laid the same place not long ago. Jeremy had dragged the old man into the bedroom and left him covered with a white sheet from Luke's own bed. The image of the blood seeping through the thin cloth and soaking into it made Jeremy wretch again.

    
Jeremy sat there rocking back and forth on the couch replaying everything in his mind. He'd done the only thing he could, he told himself. It had been kill or be killed, simple as that. Still, it didn't seem to feel that way.

    
He cursed himself for being so weak. Whatever had happened the night before was worse than a simple power outage. He realized it now; the light hadn't been just a dream. Something was terribly fucked up with the world and he was caught in the middle of it by simply being alive. He cursed himself too for his inaction. He shouldn't still be here. The day was half gone and Luke's truck sat in the backyard still untried. If it ran, he could have been in town by now, hunting for help and maybe finding out what HAD happened last night. Yet he sat here, stealing a dead friend's beer.

    
Luke hadn't been himself. He had been more like an animal. Jeremy questioned if any part of the old Luke had been left inside of him. He doubted it.

    
Fear was what kept him here, fear of the unknown. What if the folks in town were like Luke? What would he do? He knew he couldn't stay here though and there seemed no point in going home. There was nothing there for him. After a brief search, he found the keys to the truck out back hanging in the kitchen but before he started towards town, there was one other thing he needed to do.

    
He walked to the bedroom door and looked at the corpse snuggled inside the sheet. Inwardly, he said a final good-bye to the old man as he built up the courage to step around him and open the connecting door to Luke's storage room. Half a dozen rifles were displayed on a hanging rack mounted on the far wall of the room and a glass case below them contained Luke's collection of handguns. Not all of them were real of course. Some were just replicas but aside from sitting on his porch, drinking, and smoking, they had been Luke's only real passion in life.

    
Jeremy wrapped his hand in a cloth napkin borrowed from the kitchen and smashed open the locked case. He inspected each gun carefully until he found one that was both real and loaded. He tucked an old style.38 into the back of his pants before reaching up to take a.30-06 from the rifle rack. Unlike the handguns, Jeremy knew where Luke kept the ammo for the rifles and stopped to pick up a box of rounds before he headed out back to the truck.

    
He slid into the cab of the ancient, beat up vehicle, and turned the ignition. The engine rolled over on the first try and roared to life. Jeremy glanced back one more time at Luke's house then backed out of the drive. The truck's tires squealed and spun out as he floored the gas before the truck lurched leaving a cloud of dust in its wake as it sped into the distance.

    
Amy pinched the flesh of her arm, nails digging deep enough into the skin to bring blood. “Wake up! Oh please god. Wake up!” she yelled inside her own mind but the scene about her stubbornly refused to change.

    
She sat in the back of the van with her legs curled up beneath her. Across from her sat a boy of no more than twelve. Amy thought his name might be Jake or Jack or something like that, but she couldn't remember. The last hours of her life were a blur of death, running, and the three people who shared this ride with her.

    
The van jolted as it hit something in the street. Amy prayed it was a pothole. Dan sat in the driver's seat, his attention fixed on the road ahead. His black hair was streaked with gray though he appeared otherwise to only be in his later twenties or early thirties.

    
The van was silent except for the dull sound of its engine. Katherine was in the passenger's seat up front with Dan holding a 12 gauge in her lap and watching Amy and the boy intently. It was clear. She trusted none of them. She'd kill any of them in an instant if she needed to in order to survive herself. Of this, Amy had no doubt.

    
There had been another man with them early who went crazy. Katherine's shotgun had splattered his head onto the wall and she'd had Dan stop so she could kick the body out of the van.

    
All day, they had driven south through the city in search of others who didn't have the “sickness” and a safe place to get help. That was what Dan called it and it was as good of a name as anything she could have come up. The van they rode in was both a blessing and a curse. It gave them a means of travel and to run from any problems they encountered but it also drew problems to them. The sound of the engine attracted the crazy people who had come down with the sickness. Katherine and Dan had had to fight them off a half dozen times already today. It also attracted the unwanted of attention of other survivors of the wrong kind who were willing to kill for the working vehicle. Thank God, they only met up with a bunch like that once and had been able to flee without a real fight.

    
Amy didn't really know where Dan was trying to take them to. She hoped he knew himself. After all she had been through, Amy wondered if there was even such a thing as a safe place anymore. Her stomach growled with hunger.

    
There was food to be had throughout the city in abandoned establishments and stores. The trouble lay in stopping to get it. Staying still for any length of time with the van stopped only invited death to come knocking. They learned that quickly and the hard way. The human-creatures who had the disease were good at hiding and seemed to be everywhere.

    
Amy fished around in the pockets of her jacket and produced the remaining half of a candy bar she had looted herself during the one time they had stopped earlier in the day. The boy watched her with a hungry gaze but said nothing. She snapped the remnants of the candy in half again and offered a portion to the boy. He snatched it from her hand and sat back chewing it with smacking lips. Katherine watched the display but showed no signs of caring. “She must be hungry too,” Amy thought, “But she doesn't show it like we do."

    
"We'll be there soon,” Dan muttered, more to himself than his passengers. “We'll get help. You'll see. Everything will be fine."

    
Amy hoped he was right. She knew Dan was on the verge of collapse, of a breakdown, or whatever you called it but she hoped none the less.

****

President Clark stood on the White House lawn. He could hear the howls of the poor souls outside the perimeter of the massive walls, which stretched around the yard. Sporadic gunfire intermingled with their cries every few moments. People had begun to flock to the walls trying to seek entrance and refuge early last night. They came in search of help and were turned away. They were all long dead or changed now. The things outside the wall were no longer human at all, as he defined the terms. Their souls were gone. They were monsters, mindless automatons who wanted nothing more than to get inside so they could rip his throat open with their bare hands. He could no longer force himself to feel pity for these creatures but he did mourn for the people they once were, now gone forever. They had been his people after all; his nation and they had trusted him. This is where he had led them.

    
He had refused Wiggins’ pleas to leave the night before hoping that if word got out of his staying it would give the people in this city at least hope and help calm the rioting and looting. He saw how wrong he was now. His presence here was pointless. The city was dead. He wondered if he had waited too long to take Wiggins’ advice in time. The creatures surrounded the White House walls, even now, their ranks were stacked six or seven rows deep against the wall, pushing and clawing to get inside. He couldn't remotely guess at how many of their number had been crushed by those behind them and trampled over as new members of the horde took their place. There seemed to be no end to the monsters. It was as if all of Washington was out there.

    
Wiggins’ soldiers lined the wall, shooting any of the things that were smart enough to devise a way over to the lawn. More of Wiggins’ men still worked around the clock converting the vehicles inside interior parking area into an
armoured
motorcade, a convoy capable of piercing the ranks outside the wall and making it to safety.

    
Wiggins’ intended to head for the Def-con installation IV. It was the closest of the still functional base that were original built to survive a nuclear holocaust. It was located deep in the mountains of North Carolina and there he would be safe. Perhaps there they could find the answers to this mess and end the nightmare. With luck, they could build a new start for the world.

    
Clark jumped as he felt a firm hand grasp his shoulder. He spun around to see General Wiggins. “Everything's ready, sir. We're just waiting for you,” Wiggins informed him.

    
Clark nodded absently. “What the hell are we going to do General?"

    
"Survive, Mr. President. My job is to get you out of here to Def-Con 4 and I'm going to do it."

    
Wiggins led Clark to where the convoy had assembled just inside the southern gate. Five cars and two trucks comprised it, non-military but covered in makeshift
armour
. Three of the cars no longer had roofs. They had been cut off so that large M-60 emplacements could be added to the vehicles, the kind one normally saw in the rear of an army jeep equipped for field duty. Both trucks possessed bulky wedges of steel welded to their hoods shaped like battering rams. The whole convoy looked like something out that early Mel Gibson sci-fi flick about people fighting for gas in the desert after the world had ended. Clark didn't know whether to break into to tears or laugh until he was rolling in the grass of the lawn at the knowledge of just how far humanity had fallen. Wiggins escorted him to the second truck in the line and opened the door for him.