Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale (36 page)

***

Bryant closed the door behind them and ran to the ladder. Cara scrambled up onto the roof first. He climbed after her, hearing the door open behind him. Bryant pulled his top half into the sunlight and felt Cara grab his arms and help pull him up. The couple ran hand-in-hand to the edge of the roof and looked down. The streets had thinned out with most of the single-minded beings entering the building after the new food. More rotting bodies kept fighting through the already crowded doorways. However, Bryant saw more than enough to stop them even if they found a way down.

He turned to Cara and swallowed. “I don’t see any way out.”

“A full clip in the pistol and four shots with the rifle.” He felt choked up. A strange lump formed in his throat that impeded his ability to speak. What he wanted to say to her involved the unfair hand they had been dealt. They had survived so much hardship and so many tight spots only to die anyway. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about all the adversity the two of them had overcome, but still did not impact the outcome at all.

“Let’s take out all of them that we can and leave one bullet each.” Cara did not explain why but Bryant knew the answer. She wanted the Romeo and Juliet double-suicide, lovers with no choice but to enter oblivion together.

Bryant watched the hatch slowly lift and sunken eyes peer over the lip. He raised the rifle and put a bullet in its forehead. The hatch closed and he heard the body tumble down, connecting with the metal ladder. Bryant kept the sight trained on the hatch, waiting. When the next head bobbed into view, the bullet rocketed through the bone and brain, dropping the second beast. He repeated the process and two shots later, he dropped the empty gun at his feet. He stepped forward ten feet and pointed the nine millimeter, prepared to keep going. Cara stood beside him with her pistol drawn.

She looked at him with admiration. She tried to remember a point in which she hated him. Though she knew that early on she disliked him, she could not remember those feelings, not standing beside him while he looked so resolved staring death in the face.

The piling bodies made it easier for the zombies to more quickly climb. They no longer even needed the ladder. He fired over and over, sending the ghouls back into the darkened interior and then he stopped. Looking down at his gun, he realized that the final bullet was in the chamber.

Cara handed her pistol over to him and took the almost empty one. “You’re a better shot.” His watery eyes met hers and they hugged, embracing before the end to their lives. Over her shoulder, he watched one get to its feet on the roof. He broke away and fired.

In the silence following the shot, Bryant heard a muffled noise barely break the threshold of his senses. He cocked his head to one side trying to hear it clearly. Cara noticed it as well. She looked around, trying to place the steadily growing rhythmic sound. Then Bryant pointed into the clear blue sky.

“A helicopter!” The hot rush of joy frightened him because it seemed so foreign after five days of death. He turned and fired into the skull of an approaching monster and fired at the next one, hoping that the chopper would hurry. He only had two shots left. Two more dead bodies did not slow down the beasts shuffling forward, immune to the fear of bullets.

Bryant tossed the pistol and picked up the rifle to use as a bludgeon. Before his first swing, Cara pulled the trigger of her pistol with the one remaining bullet. Her shot counted, sending one creature slinking toward the ground. Bryant rushed the next cadaver, cracking its head open with the wooden stock. A sweeping blow to the head sent another enemy sailing off the roof into the streets below.

The helicopter hovered above them and rolled out a rope ladder, which unwrapped during its free fall. Cara tossed the empty pistol to the side and grabbed the coarse wooden rung connected by sleek nylon cords. She scrambled up, trying to leave room for Bryant to grab on. With her adrenaline pumping, she scaled the entire device and climbed into the open door of the heli.

The interior of the chopper held three dirty soldiers, a pilot that she could not see very well, boxes of ammo and M.R.E.s. One of the men on the end held an M16 propped on his knee. Deciding to ignore her new companions, she peered out at her man.

Bryant swung again, letting go of the rifle as it collided with another skull. He quickly turned and grabbed the grainy wooden step. The pilot, sensing time had run out, maneuvered the copter laterally away from the building. Bryant suddenly found himself swinging wildly on the unstable rescue rope. One last lumbering beast lunged forward and caught Bryant’s ankle with its gnarled, but strong hands.

Cara extended her head out enough to see Bryant struggle to hold on. The extra weight of the body dangling from his shoes slowly pulled his aching fingers from the surface of the ladder. Her eyes met his as the strain became too great. She blinked and when her eyes opened, her lover plummeted toward the earth. His face, still upturned, mouthed a silent scream as he plunged downward.

The girl spun around and begged the pilot to set down. The man in an olive-drab jumpsuit and oversized helmet turned to her and said “No way, girl.” The soldier with the big ears shouted to the pilot that the guy fell three stories and had probably died.

Cara slapped his seat, startling him. Her voice carried a conviction that the pilot found he could not argue with. “If you don’t set us down, I’ll jump out of the chopper.” Her eyes were hard as steel.

“Jesus Christ, I’ll set us down but you have less than a minute to check on him. If those things get near the bird, I’m taking off!” He did not have to say “with or without you”.

The chopper circled the splatter mark with two bodies in the center like a bull’s eye. The soldiers began picking off the walking dead that moved too close to the helicopter. During the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, bodies jerked and convulsed until the shooting stopped. Most of them fell down dead for the second time. Using the cover of assault rifles, Cara ran out and felt relieved, noticing that the zombie hit first, cushioning Bryant’s landing. She sprinted to him and knelt down looking at his face. His eyes were closed. She reached out and touched his face. His skin still felt warm and she leaned closer to hug him, to feel his breath on her neck, to lift him up and drag him to their godsend.

As she started to move, Bryant’s eyes opened. They were wide orbs telling of complete surprise. His right hand moved up grabbing her hand that gently caressed his cheek. The gesture looked so affectionate, so
Bryant
. He pulled her soft palm across his face to his lips as if he were about to kiss it. His lips parted, sliding back over his white teeth and he bit down on the knife edge of her hand.

Cara stared in complete horror. Her mind could not comprehend what he had just done. Her nerves told her that the pain was excruciating, but she could not think of that. Her only thought involved the man that she loved, that she would have gladly given her soul to, had just tried to eat her. She jerked her hand away and lost some skin in the process.

Cara stood holding her shredded palm to her stomach, using the shirt to soak up most of the blood. She stumbled toward the chopper and could barely hear the shouts over the blades whirling above her.

A soldier waited at the side pointing his M16 at her. “She’s been bitten!” He yelled it over his shoulder several times as if waiting for a response.

Cara didn’t listen. Her mind occupied itself with the words “Bryant, oh Bryant, how could you do this?” Dazed as she was, she had to concentrate to realize that she could not move forward because the soldier with the funny features pushed her back keeping the rifle between them as a buffer.

“You’ll infect the rest of us!” He spat in her face.

“You don’t understand. . .” She began but stopped. What did he not understand? She did not know what she had intended to say. She just wanted back on the helicopter. “Let me on.” He pushed her back with the gun. She reached out and grabbed the barrel with her good hand, which he interpreted as an attempt to wrestle the weapon away. His finger reflexively squeezed out a burst hitting her all three times in the chest.

Seconds later, Cara realized that she saw the bottom of a chopper growing smaller and smaller and eventually disappearing in the strong rays of the sun. “I’m sleepy.” She said to Bryant who had just appeared above her. His face was hidden under shadows from the sun, but she knew it was him. She wanted to reach up and stroke his face but her arms refused to cooperate. Her eyelids felt heavy, even heavier than her arms. “I can just close them for a second” she thought.

***

Bryant sat beside her, holding her wounded hand up to his mouth, nibbling on the thin flesh covering her carpal bones. Another thing had walked up to feed but Bryant hit it in the head with a rock found within arm’s reach. He thought “she tastes good”, which was the most complex thought he could muster. Unfortunately for him, the taste had begun to sour. Then he knew not to eat anymore.

She pulled her hand out of his mouth and used it to push herself up from the ground. Bryant stood too. He looked at her, feeling . . . His poor pitiful brain could not name it. She looked back at him, recognizing something in him. They no longer felt the heat beating down from direct sunlight. They no longer felt the sticky humidity of the Deep South. They no longer noticed the others of their kind aimlessly walking. They did, however, notice that their hands were entwined. The fingers interlocked in a familiar way. They also noticed that they felt satisfied. The reason why laid beyond their grasp. Maybe it was because the hind-brain controlled feelings of contentment, maybe not. Regardless, the two newly dead did not break the physical connection between them. She tentatively put one foot in front of the other. Soon the other copied the motion and they were walking hand in hand down a bustling main street. They needed no verbal communication. They both sensed that they would have to travel to find food, but that did not concern them. They just walked on, fingers gently gripping each other, contented.

EPILOGUE

Debbie woke up in a twin sized bed, under white sheets. The doctor and the walls of machines around her served as a reminder as to her location. She was somewhere below the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. Somehow, this building had remained safe during the outbreaks. A group of humans tried to take it over, accusing the government of the outbreak. Of course the soldiers managed to quell the attack pretty easily. Most of the survivors had been brought inside. They were all confined, but never referred to as prisoners. Debbie’s circumstances allowed her freedom of movement for the most part. The doctors told her that she was a patient. As far as she had seen, they did nothing different from a normal hospital and she trusted them. After all, everyone wanted the plague outside gone. It had spread beyond borders and decimated the world population. It would be suicide not to work together.

A man in a white coat asked her how she felt and pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. The girl replied that she could go back to sleep for a few more hours. She had wakened several times in the night. He gave a short laugh and adjusted his spectacles yet again. He casually mentioned breakfast and pointed toward a small stainless steel cart with a plate and plastic lid. “I believe that it is scrambled eggs and grits, maybe a piece of grapefruit thrown in. Bacon and sausage are running low.”

Debbie nodded. Over the past few months, everyone had come to understand that some luxuries must be sacrificed. Honestly, she did not expect to still receive any type of fruit so far along. She stopped worrying about the logistical problems of having food supplies brought in and just concentrated on her child.

Her stomach had swollen to a taut round ball. The baby’s kicking interrupted her sleep. It had been months since her escape. The people that found her had been military. The CDC operations had top priority since everyone now agreed that the origin of the zombies was definitely viral. Apparently the disease was airborne, but dormant in oxygenated blood. Upon death though, the virus became active. The scientists theorized that some people had been carrying it around with them for months, possibly years. How would you know unless you were dead?

The doctor excused himself after telling her that a nurse would be in to check on her in thirty minutes. She rolled onto her side, feeling uncomfortable but needing to change position. Robert had been carrying it but she did not know that when she had made love to the wounded boy. When the blood-loss from missing fingers finally claimed him, he had come back too. Debbie had finished him off. She refused to think about what she had had to do to survive. Then she had collapsed on the slick floor of a fast food chain’s cooler and cried for hours. Her only company had left her. Her companion in that short amount of time had come to mean so much to her, that she wondered how she could have worked with him for so long and never noticed how wonderful he was.

Debbie eased herself to the edge of the bed, wistfully recalling the last moments with the father of her child. Robert never had the chance to prove himself as a parent, but that was okay. It sounded really warped, but the doctors had explained that her lover had possibly contributed more than he could ever have guessed.

One of the lead researchers reasoned it out for her. The baby in her womb would be born with the virus as part of its normal makeup. If the pregnancy proceeded normally, they could possibly develop a vaccine. He stressed that the medicine made from that research would not yield a cure for those already reanimated, but more likely a shot that if administered, would at least make anyone who passed not come back. She remembered the doctor’s sad smile as he patted her hand. “It may not sound like much, but it’s a start.” She had agreed.

Her precious baby with its light caramel skin would help save lives by doing nothing more than simply being born. With these thoughts, Deb waddled to her mirror and examined her full, healthy belly. “New life,” she spoke aloud. “Even in the worst of situations, we can always find something beautiful.”