Survivors Read online

  Except it never did. After half a minute, she began to backtrack, scanning the whole area in a grid. A glowing, neon-blue trail of what she knew to be blood led from the initial impact point to the tree. But there was nothing leading away in any direction she could find.

  After two full minutes, she leaned back. Turning to Mace, she motioned him closer. “I hit it,” she whispered into her radio. “Head shot. But it’s still moving. Went underneath a tree and hasn’t come out.”

  “Well, shit.” His response was heartfelt, if not eloquent. “What do we do now?”

  “It might still be down there under that tree, watching for us. I can’t stick my head out again.” She paused and considered, not wanting to say what needed to be said. “We need to go after it. Hopefully I can hit it again from a distance. But be ready with that shotgun. Or a grenade. Maybe a cannon? Do you have a cannon?”

  Mace’s gut clenched again and he began to sweat beneath his helmet, though the night air was chilly. Her attempt at humor was doing nothing to lighten his mood. “What’s your plan?”

  “We can’t go out through the lobby. From under that tree he could be on us in seconds. We need to go out through the garage and around. Find a place a few blocks away to shoot from. At the very least draw him away from our building.” Shari’s tactical experience from her time outside was kicking in.

  “We can’t open the main garage door; every zombie around will come running. There’s a side door, but it’s kind of close to where he is. If the thing squeaks…”

  Shari nodded her head. He didn’t need to say anything more. “Let’s go.”

  They crept back to the stairwell entrance and made their way downstairs. Without the risk of light above them, Shari decided to stop at the fourth floor and peek out the windows to see if she could find the monster. She stood well back from the glass, using her rifle scope’s night vision to search. After a full minute, she shook her head.

  Proceeding down the stairs to the lobby, they crept around to the garage entry and Mace opened it as quietly as possible. Once inside the garage, they made their way up half a level to a service door which opened out onto the grounds behind the building.

  Mace used his keycard and the lock clicked open, the sound nearly making both of them jump out of their skins. Taking hold of the door handle, he pushed gently and there was a slight scrape of metal-on-metal as the long-unused door swung free of its frame. He held the door for Shari to step out, and they both got low as she scanned the area.

  This was incredibly dangerous. Not only was there an injured, angry, giant zombie beast on the loose, but the darkness was preventing them from seeing any flying or crawling threats. Mace couldn’t help but picture the grass ahead of them full of contaminated ants, beetles, snakes, and squirrels. They couldn’t even turn on a flashlight for fear of alerting any potentially-deadly creatures to their presence.

  Shari scanned the area through her night vision scope. “I don’t see anything,” she whispered. “Like, anything. Nothing moving, nothing glowing.”

  She stood and moved forward, Mace following behind as she hugged the wall and made her way around the building. When they got to the spot where the concrete wall became glass, she halted, crouching low. Using the rifle scope again, she peered through the glass of the lobby towards the spot where she suspected the zombie creature was hiding.

  “It’s there!” she hissed into her radio. Mace jumped, cursing quietly to himself. He reached up and withdrew the shotgun from its sheath on his back, wishing that he did indeed have a grenade or a cannon. There were grenades in the security office, and he briefly considered going back for one. But there was simply too much ground between them and it.

  “It’s not moving. Maybe it’s dead?” Shari sounded hopeful as she whispered into her radio. “Maybe the headshot just took a minute to kill it. There was a lot of blood…”

  “Or maybe it’s playing dead. We don’t know how smart this thing is. I mean, we’re assuming it was an ape. Maybe it was just a big dude with long arms.”

  Shari kept watching it through the scope for several more seconds. “I think it’s dead. I don’t see it moving at all.”

  Before she could lose her nerve, or Mace could lose his, Shari stood up and moved along the glass wall toward the corner. Stopping there, she leaned forward to aim her rifle. Now only a few dozen yards from the monstrous thing, she aimed quickly and squeezed the trigger again. The thing’s head rocked backward, as it let out a tremendous roar of pain.

  “Oh, shit!” Shari fell backward, trying to get out of the thing’s line of sight. She’d forgotten that the wall next to her was glass. The creature looked right through the lobby, and focused in on her. It tried to stand but couldn’t seem to gain its feet, so it began to crawl toward her.

  Its massive arms were just as powerful as its legs and it was quickly eating up the ground between them. Shari tried not to panic. “Mace! The shotgun! My bullets didn’t kill it! The shotgun!”

  Mace, who may have actually shit himself when the thing began moving, now found he had a deep sense of calm. He saw the thing moving as though in slow motion. He saw Shari rise to her feet and back behind him, so that he’d have a clear shot. He looked to his left at the glass lobby and murmured into his radio, “Not here. Too close to home.”

  Grabbing her wrist, he began to run away from the approaching zombie. Though it was moving quickly, it couldn’t hope to keep up with a running human. In fact, Mace kept their pace slow enough that the monster was able to pursue. He took them across the remainder of the park and around the corner of a burned-out building.

  When they neared the end of the block, Mace picked up the pace. He handed Shari the shotgun as they rounded another corner. They had maybe fifteen seconds before the thing caught up. Pulling out his sword, he pointed back toward the street they’d just left.

  “Keep going. Draw the thing toward you. As soon as it clears this corner, shoot it. I need a distraction to get behind it. Only shoot once, then keep moving.”

  Shari nodded her understanding and moved back into the big creature’s line of sight. She backpedaled quickly as it got closer, drawing it toward her. Mace flattened himself against the wall, his dark clothes making him nearly invisible to the human eye. The problem was, he had no idea how the zombie creature’s vision worked. If it saw in infrared, for example, Mace was a dead man.

  He froze, holding his breath as the thing dragged its body past his corner. Shari stopped and raised the shotgun, only about twenty feet away from the monstrous thing. She fired at its head, then resumed backing up.

  Bits of the thing’s face flew off, including one eye and a chunk of its shoulder. Because it was already nearly prone when she fired down at it, every bit of the lead hit some part of the thing. The monster roared in pain and collapsed facedown onto the street, clawing frantically at its face.

  Still feeling the deadly calm, Mace raced toward the prone zombie. It was several times his mass, and as he got closer he noted a foul stench that was probably the thing’s rotting flesh. Leaping the last several feet, he raised his sword over his head in a two-handed grip and chopped down with everything he had. The sword sliced cleanly into the monster’s thick, muscular neck, stopping about halfway through - just far enough to sever the spine. It immediately stopped moving, thoroughly dead.

  Unfortunately for Mace, his leap sent him tumbling over the thing’s corpse as he landed. He lost his grip on the sword, which was firmly embedded in the zombie’s neck, and sprawled forward across the thing’s back, slathering his entire front in zombie blood and slime. He rolled off the thing onto his back and scrambled to his feet.

  He held up his hands as Shari came running over.

  “Stop! I’m contaminated!” He pointed to the neon blue sludge covering his body from his knees to his chest. “Don’t touch me!”

  Shari hissed at him, wanting to scream. “Get your clothes off. Now!”

  Mace began stripping, right there in the middle of the stre
et. He unstrapped his body armor, peeling it off as quickly as he could, then his boots popped off, followed by his pants - the least-protected area between the slime and his skin. He tried to lift his outer shirt but there was no good way to get it over his helmet. While only a few small splashes of blood had managed to get past his armor onto his shirt, he wasn’t about to take the helmet off and expose his head to potential contamination.

  Shari solved the problem for him, yanking a knife from the sheath on her thigh and sticking it up under the back of his shirt where it was clean. She ripped upward, cutting the shirt in half and allowing him to pull it forward rather than over his head.

  Lastly he removed his gloves, being careful not to touch any splashes of blue slime. He dropped them on the ground and stepped back away from his discarded gear. Standing there in just a t-shirt, boxers, and socks, and his helmet, he looked around frantically for any other creatures that might have been drawn by the noise.

  Shari was looking at his boots. “These look okay. No splashes that I can see. Put them back on.”

  He slid his feet carefully back into the boots and Shari tightened them for him, as she was the only one still wearing gloves. “We’ll come back tomorrow for your gear,” she said. “Or find you new gear. We need to get back inside ASAP.” as she pulled his sword from the creature’s neck, she used his discarded shirt to wipe it down. She didn’t hand it back to him, though, just held onto it.

  Mace didn’t bother to answer, simply setting off back in the direction of the side door to the garage. They weren’t about to enter through the lobby, just in case one of the other creatures was now watching. Not bothering to be quiet after the ruckus they’d just made, the two of them dashed back to the door leading to the parking garage at top speed, Mace using the keycard hung around his neck to unlock it.

  Shari halted him as soon as the door closed behind them and turned on her flashlight, scanning every inch of his body. Mace himself was less calm now that the thing was dead. He was pretty sure he was dead himself. There was no way he hadn’t been contaminated.

  After a minute, she asked, “Is there a hose or something in here?”

  Mace nodded. “Back corner, there’s a car wash station. Hose, detergents, sponges.”

  She led him to the corner, taking special care not to touch him. That wasn’t a good sign. As soon as they were there, she grabbed the end of the hose and turned on the spigot. As the water began to flow, she turned to look at him. “Strip. All of it.”

  Too terrified to worry about his modesty, Mace removed his helmet and tossed it to the side. His boots followed, then his socks and clothing. The moment they were clear, Shari blasted him with a stream of cold water.

  “Hey!” he hissed. “Dammit, that’s cold!”

  She looked down a bit and nodded. “Clearly.”

  Blushing furiously, he turned his back and let her spray that side for a bit. When he turned back around, she was giggling like a madwoman as she turned off the water.

  “What’s so funny? There’s always shrinkage when the water is cold!” he grumped. She only laughed harder, falling to the wet floor as she gasped for breath.

  Covering himself with his hands, he lunged for one of the washrags on a nearby shelf and held it in front of his crotch. “C’mon! I’m cold. Go inside and get me a blanket or something.”

  She held up a hand for him to wait as her giggles tapered off. Managing to catch her breath, she got to her feet and looked him over. “You’re fine. You can come inside.”

  “What?! Are you crazy? I could turn into one of those things any time now!”

  “You weren’t contaminated. Only a tiny bit got past your armor and it didn’t soak through your clothes. I checked carefully. You’re clean.” She grinned at him, tears of laughter in her eyes.

  “Then why…” he started to ask, confused.

  “Why did I trick you into stripping naked and letting me spray you with cold water? Are you kidding? When am I ever gonna get another opportunity like that?”

  Grumbling to himself, he turned his back on his newly-acquired girlfriend and pulled his boxers back on over his wet skin, then slipped his shoes on and headed toward the lobby entrance door without even looking back.

  Shari followed behind, still chuckling to herself. As the two of them rode silently down the elevator to the thirtieth level, she moved to stand directly in front of him, looking into his eyes.

  “You’re not plotting some kind of revenge now, are you?” she asked sweetly.

  “Well, I wasn’t. I’m still pretty shocked I’m not dead. But since you mentioned it, there will be a reckoning. Oh, yes.” He pulled her close, the warmth of her against his chest stilling some of the involuntary shaking of his own body.

  Only the combination of the adrenaline come-down and the cold, he told himself. Not fear.

  Reaching their level, they exited the elevator. “I’m hitting the shower.”

  He made for his quarters, Shari following behind. When she followed him into his room, he gave her a questioning look.

  “What? You’re gonna need somebody to scrub your back, right?” she asked innocently.

  Chapter 2

  Making Friends and Killing People

  The next morning, they returned to the roof before they’d even had breakfast and Shari used her scope to check on the body of the zombie ape. It was still right where they’d left it. And it looked intact - or at least, as intact as they’d left it. No predators were visible from this distance, though there might be thousands of contaminated insects feeding on the thing by now.

  “What are we going to do?” she whispered into her radio.

  Mace, outfitted in replacement armor (of sorts) from the stash in the security office, was, as usual, scanning the sky for threats. “We can’t leave it out there, it will attract others. And they might follow our scent back here. We need to burn it.”

  Shari continued to watch for several more minutes. Reassured that there weren’t more of the creatures around, they headed downstairs. Shari said “We can take Bertha. Drive up close, grab one of the extra gas cans, douse that thing and take off. Be back inside before the smoke can be seen over the buildings.”

  “While we’re out, let’s hit the national guard armory,” he pointed to the less-than-ideal armor he’d scrounged for the day. “I need replacement armor and you could use some better gear yourself. Maybe pick up a grenade launcher or an RPG. Or a damned cannon. Do you know how to fire a cannon?”

  Shari elbowed him in the ribs. “Where the hell would I have learned to fire a cannon? And how are you planning to get it to the roof? Can you fly a helicopter?”

  “No, but I could maybe drive a crane truck. Do you know how to operate a crane?”

  “Crane truck? Well if you can drive one of those, why don’t we just get a tank?” She rolled her eyes at the ridiculous chain of ideas. Mace just grinned. She could see from the look in his eyes he was fantasizing about having a tank.

  “They might actually have one of those at the armory,” he mumbled wistfully. Then he shook his head. “Nah. Won’t fit through the garage door.”

  Shari snorted at the amount of serious thought he’d apparently put into becoming a tank commander.

  “How ‘bout we get some pancakes and a little fruit? Then we can go barbecue the beastie outside and hit your armory. How far away is it?” she asked as they got off the elevator at their habitat level.

  “We actually passed it on the way to the building supply store; it doesn’t really stand out. Plus, we were distracted by the truck full of Ho-Hos.” He grinned again, looking hopeful.

  Shari rolled her eyes. “Fine! We can stop and get more junk food too. And maybe a few more plants?”

  Mace shook his head emphatically. “Uh-uh! I’m not bringing any more houseflies in here. No way. Negatory.”

  Shari didn’t really blame him after the scare the previous night. Having contaminated blood all over him had truly freaked him out, and if she was honest, it ha
d terrified her, too. She’d had visions of having to shoot Mace in the brain and continue on alone.

  Arriving in the kitchen, Mace started mixing the pancake batter while Shari retrieved a jar of pears from the pantry. In just a few minutes he had whipped up a small stack of pancakes for each of them and Shari had spooned a couple of halved pears into bowls. As they sat down to eat, Mace began to muse.

  “You think maybe that thing we killed was just so badass that it cleared this entire area? Like, everything else was afraid to get too close?”

  “That’s possible. Or maybe other creatures did approach, and it ate them. That was one big zombie,” Shari offered.

  “We should bring a radio with us. The smoke from burning that thing might alert other survivors. And I don’t know how friendly or trustworthy they’d be.” He’d been suspicious of other survivors ever since the earlier attack near the grocery store.

  The two of them sketched out a few more rough plans as they ate, then after a quick and efficient cleanup, they returned topside and climbed into Bertha, Shari’s Humvee. Shari drove and Mace was on gas can duty.

  They exited the garage and took the long way around to reach the location where the dead zombie ape still lay rotting in the street. Shari spun Bertha around and backed up toward the thing as Mace leapt out and grabbed one of the gas cans mounted to Bertha’s back door.

  A liberal dousing of gas on the corpse caused several glowing blue insects to skitter quickly away. Mace sincerely hoped that they got caught in the fire. He looked over at his discarded armor nearby. Calling out to Shari, he asked, “You think that armor can be cleaned? Like, fully sanitized so it’s safe?”

  Shari shook her head. “I have no idea. You want to risk it?”

  “Newp.” Mace didn’t really think about it. He was just sort of attached to the gear that had kept him alive this long. Looking around for any movement, he did go and retrieve his shoulder harness - after checking it carefully, of course. He’d put a lot of work into creating it, after all, and it fit his sword and shotgun perfectly, keeping them snug on his back.