Zombie D.O.A. (14 page)

The turret started to rotate and fixed on the building on the opposite side of the
road
. Chavez placed the bullhorn carefully down and grasped the handgrips of the machine gun.  Suddenly, the windows on the other
side
started to shatter.

“He’s firing!” I shouted to Joe, and he came back at
a
run.
He was wearing a double
shoulder
holster and
was carrying some kind of military rucksack
. 

“Long as
he’s using the 50 mil
we’re okay for now.  W
e better hope they can’t operate the main gun or we are in deep shit.
Pack up Ruby and be ready in five.
”

I made a dash
for
it and had almost made it across the room when there was an almighty explosion. The building seemed almost to tilt and I was thrown to the floor. Thick dust poured in through the doorway, and I took
in
a mouthful of it. It felt like the back of my throat had been flash fried and I started hacking
like a two packs a day smoker.

There was a ringing in my ears as I crawled forward painfully. It seemed too light in there, and I soon discovered why, the tank shell had blown a gaping hole in
the
side of the building. Through the dust I could see daylight, could see the top floors of the houses on the other side of the road.

And now I could hear Chavez, talking into his bullhorn again, “Chris Collins. I know you’re in there. I’m calling you out
,
motherfucker. Calling you out to take your punishment like a man.”

I could hear the grumbling of the of the tank engine and the electrical whine as the turret
was swung once again, then the explosion as another round was fired, this time
at the buildings over the road.

I staggered to my feet and lurched towards the bed,
dreading
what I might find. 

Ruby wasn’t there!

Frantically, I searched the floor, under the bed. Nothing. I could hear
Joe
calling out, shouting that we had to move. Outside the tank was revving up, sounding like a Boeing 747. I heard the
sound
of
the turret
being
swung again, heard Chavez call me out as a coward and a chicken-shit.

Joe was in the doorway shouting, and then it suddenly came to me. I’d made up a cot for Ruby in my room and moved her there after her last diaper change. I made a run for the door, almost
bowling Joe over as th
e next shell struck
.  This ti
me the building definitely
list
ed
a
s the tank shell plowed into it.

I reached my room and scooped up Ruby in the coverlet. Joe wa
s waiting in the passage and led
us through the smothering dust. He had opened
one of
the shutters and now pointed
me
out
onto the fire escape, as yet another tank shell
slammed
into the building.

“Move it
!”
Joe shouted and I started to descend, as quickly as I dared. The building was
starting to disintegrate
.
I could see deep cracks running through the
brickwork
.

I heard the popping sound
of pistol fire behind me and heard Joe curse. “They’
re in the alleyway,” he
shout
ed
and then I saw them,
lots
of them
,
pouring through the gap between the
apartment blocks
. 

At that moment the side of the building
started to collapse. T
he steel fire escape come
away from the wall and swu
ng
wildly across the alley. I hang on with my left hand and clung desperately to Ruby with my right. Joe was shouting to me hold on, but I could feel my h
and slipping. It was t
en feet to
the alley floor, an easy drop, but
still I clung on.

To
my left the creatures were picking their way through the rubble. Joe kept firing, pinning them back, but there were
just
too many of them.

I felt my fingers slide across the last inch of metal and I was falling. I landed awkwardly on my ankle and fell backward,
hitting the
floor
flat
on my
back
, while clutching Ruby to my chest. In an instant two of the creatures were on me. Joe would later tell me that he didn’t have a
shot and thought I was a goner. 

B
ut then
Ruby started
crying.

The creatures seemed momentarily confused and look
ed
at each other in a way that was almost comical. Then Joe
dropped
in
to
the alley and
dispatched
each of them with a single headshot.

In the street the tank was revving up again, and then there was another explosion as the final round battered the building. The side of my former home bulged out and then seemed to fold on itself. A deadly rain of bricks and steel and plaster crashed down on the creatures still in the alley.

Joe meanwhile had been working at lifting a manhole cover and I heard it grate open as the tank pushed its way into the rubble of the building.

Clutching Ruby to my chest
, I clambered into the hole. At the last moment I came face to face with Bronson Chavez, his head protruding from the tank turret, shades pushed back into his greasy hair.

The look on his face was one of disbelief mixed in with impotent rage.
Then his features softened and the rage became
almost reverent
. It was then I noticed that he was looking, not at me, but at Ruby.

A moment late
r we
descended the
steel-runged
ladder into darkness.

At
t
he bottom of the ladder Joe produced a couple of flashlights and we set off straight away, putting some distance behind us. After a while Ruby began to feel about as heavy as a small wall safe and I called for a break.

Joe fashioned a kind of sling out of the coverlet that allowed me to carry Ruby on my back. “A little trick I picked up in Africa,” he explained. “This is how mothers carry their babies over there.” 

Joe Thursday was nothing if not prepared. In his mi
litary rucksack
he carried
a pair of two way radios, some army ration packs, spare ammo,
a compass
,
even some of Ruby’s special ground beef blend and some diapers.  He
’d
also brought a R5 rifle with a folding stock. “Made in South Africa” he said, “based on the AK47 and the best damn assault rifle ever made.”

He pulled a handgun from the rucksack and handed it to me,
“You ever fired one of these?
” h
e asked. When I said that I hadn’t he gave me a quick demonstration. 

“Safety’s here, push it back like so and she’s good to go
. Just point and fire. Simple
. The clip holds fifteen and here’s some extra,” he said, handing me two magazines.

Joe consulted his compass now, tapped it, looked again. “Shit,” he said.

“What’s up?”

“We must have done a loop around back there. We’re heading south. We’re going to have to backtrack.”

“But I thought south was what we
wanted. The park?
”

“Big fuckin’ negative on that one, Chris. You don’t want to go there.
That’s the last place you wanna be.
Right, let’s move.”

“Whoa, hold up.  I got
ta
get to the base. Get some medicine for Ruby. I…”

“Have you been listening to a thing I’ve told you Chris?”

His tone pissed me off.
“What, about your brilliant acting career?”
I asked.

Joe
stared back at me, and even in the dim light I could see he was angry. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of Joe Thursday the hitman, the mercenary, the killer.

“We gotta move,” he said suddenly.

“You go back if you want, “ I said. “
I’m going this
way
.”

“Jeeesssuuusss!” he screamed. “Tell me you’re not that fucking stupid!”

“Bye Joe,” I said and started walking. 

I’d taken a few paces when he said, “How’d you think this happened so quickly?”

I’d had enough of Joe’s paranoid bullshit and I wasn’t listening. I kept walking.

Behind me
he
kept shouting, “Why weren’t there more military on the streets?
Where were the police? How do a bunch of
deadhead zombies manage to over
run Manhattan in, what 24 hours? Less? Where’s the cavalry, Chris? Where were they when Rosie needed them?”

That stopped me. I turned and looked back into the darkness, where Joe stood in a pool of light thrown by the flashlight.

I felt anger bubbling up inside me. With everything that had happened in the last few days, I realized that I’d hardly thought of Rosie. Rosie my wife and the mother o
f my child,
Rosie who’s body now lay among the ruins of our former home
, Rosie who I’d shot
.

“What did you say?” I demanded.

“Where were they when Rosie was dying? You called 911, where were they?”

I suddenly
felt very tired, like the front
runner in a race who
realizes he does
n’t have
the legs to see it through.