Unrest (17 page)

              George flung the door open to see the man who’d kidnapped Xinga, piloting her friend Samir’s car, driving at what had to be at least 80 mph, probably 500 ft from them. There were at least four meat eaters clinging to the vehicle, atop the hood, the two sides, and it looked like the back. And the car was launching itself straight toward the cabin, laying on the horn the whole way. 

              “Fuck!” George said, slamming the door shut. “Get back away from the door!”

              Xinga and Lana did.

              “Is it him?” Xinga said.

              “I think so,” George said, moving with them to the back of the cabin, “And he brought some friends with him.”

***

TWO MONTHS AND THREE WEEKS EARLIER

              “Where are we?” Dr. Fielding asked, as he sat on the bed, the Marines sitting on chairs throughout the room. 

              “This is a safe house,” Private Wilkes responded. “Only a few people know of this place.”

              Theodore Fielding almost choked on a laugh.

              Wilkes and the other troops looked at him.

              “Does the president know?” Fielding asked.

              “About this place? No. Some government agencies know. The FBI...”

              “Are they in collusion with the president?”

              Wilkes looked at him confused.

              “Whose side are they on?” Fielding said.

              “Ours,” Wilkes said. “I hope.”

              “That’s not very reassuring.”

              “I have a friend on the outside. He’s on our side. I’ll contact him as soon as we’re sure the coast is clear and we weren’t followed. He’ll help us.”

              A Marine was stationed by the entry door, which opened to the living room, with an AR-15.

              “How do I know I can trust you?” Fielding posited.

              “Because you’re alive, and they’re not. I don’t take the taking of a fellow Marine’s life lightly. In this case it was an absolute necessity.”

              “Yes, I suppose you are correct. I’m still rattled by all this.”

              “We all are sir.”

              Fielding smiled for the first time since the massacre. “You all certainly don’t show it.”

              “No,” Wilkes said, turning away, “We don’t.”

              “How long do I have to stay here?” Fielding said.

              Another Marine responded, “A day, a week. We can’t know for sure.”

              “As soon as I can contact my friend on the outside we’ll know. He’ll set us up with a place no one knows about. More secure,” Wilkes said.

              “What is he, an ex-cop?”

              “No, better. He’s militia.”   

              A shot rang out. A man thumped to the floor. Someone had shot through the door and the Marine standing sentry was down, his blood already soaking into the carpet.

              “Shit, they’ve found us!” Wilkes shouted. “Everybody take cover!”

              There was a man on a bullhorn outside. “WE ARE FEDERAL AGENTS! WE HAVE THE PLACE SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP AND NO ONE ELSE HAS TO GET HURT!”

              “Fuck they say!” one of the Marines stated.

              They hid behind the bed and furniture, weapons ready. Wilkes slunk around, slowly pulling aside one of the sheer curtains and peaking through a corner of the front bay window. There were at least five unmarked cars at the front side of the house alone, and men in suits with shoulder holsters on both sides, visible on the ones who had taken their jackets off. Others stood behind the vehicles in full tactical gear with assault rifles at the ready should anything go wrong. They looked like SWAT, backing

up the feds.

              “We are surrounded. They ain’t lying,” Wilkes said.

              “It’s gotta be twenty to one,” another Marine added, peeking out as well.

              “Shit. Yeah,” Wilkes agreed.              

              “What do we do?” Fielding asked.

              Wilkes turned to him. “We fight.”

            
 
As the dead rose they walked backward toward the heavy doors.

              “I think it’s a good time to be leaving,” Samir said. They moved back out into the hall and tried to push the doors closed again, but they wouldn’t budge, even with two of them pushing on each one.

              “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Ian shouted, “This is the sort of shit that only happens in horror movies!”

              “Well, it’s happening. I don’t think those doors have been oiled in a while. But this is why we brought the heavy firepower,” Marina said. She began blasting through the rotting men and women in their business attire. Some of the rounds hit their bodies before eventually hitting their heads for the kill shot. They danced under the assault as she sprayed bullets from side to side as if they were extras in a Michael Jackson video. 

              The four stayed just inside the doorway. The dog Ariel stayed just outside the doors, shivering and growling low in her throat. “Let’s not let them get out. It’s better if we get them all inside of here,” Samir said. He had several rounds ready for the shotgun. He pumped the first round, and it threw him back, the shot going wild and hitting the chandelier. It dropped into the throng of dead, crushing a dozen or more of them under its impressive circumference. Their moans echoed with the tinkling of glass and crystal, hands grasping at the air from beneath. 

              “I warned you about that kickback,” Marina said, “but nice going getting the drop on them,” she winked. Samir steadied himself, holding the gun in a

wide legged stance, rooting himself to the ground, and fired again at one of the shambler’s heads. Its head exploded in a torrent of blood and brains. Now that he had a hang of it he loaded and reloaded, pumping rounds into each consecutive corpse in line, popping their heads open like blood filled balloons.

              Ian and Kamara took the ones that got around them, that threatened to get out.

              Kamara cleaved skulls in two bringing down the dual-bladed axe, decapitating others. Ian brought the full brunt of the spiked mace, which he swung by its handle in these close quarters, instead of by its strap, into the heads of man and woman alike. They were all dead, rotting. Just because they were in business attire didn’t make them appear any more human, and frankly it made them easier to kill.

              “I’ve never hated government so much!” Marina shouted between blasts from her AK, almost as if she’d read his mind.

              “I think we’re getting more done than they ever did,” Kamara said, swinging the axe in a state of contentment. 

              Ian saw a woman who was dirty blonde, due to actual dirt and not because it was her natural color. She was dressed in a now filthy white blouse and a hole filled beige skirt. Her face was oozing with pustules, covered in fevered blisters. “Congress is in session bitch!!” he said with glee as he caved in the side of her head with the mace. Yellow pus oozed down the remnants of her face along with blood and brain matter, and the egg white droppings of her left eye. “Ugh!” Ian said.

              One of the shamblers came up behind him, an inch away from biting into his shoulder. Ian turned in time to pull the Ruger from its holster with his other hand and shot it in the forehead. The blast went out

the back of the creature’s head, spraying the wall

with a fine mist. “Shit, that was a close call!

Whoo!” he shrieked with released tension. 

              “Are you guys having fun?” Samir said seriously, blasting through one after the other. Then he smiled. “Shit, me too.”

              All of them broke out into a fresh peal of laughter. It was wrong they should get joy out of this, but they did. It was the only thing that would get them through it.                

***

              “Oh no no no no no!” Jomo said. He and Lupe backed away, but he held his spear out and was already piercing through the chest of the first one coming through. Lupe thwacked the side of its head with her Bo Staff. The rest of the undead moved around the body, stepped over, or tripped over it, but they all spilled out into the backroom. There had to be at least two dozen of them.

              The way they were coming out of the freezer, reminded Lupe of some old commercial she’d seen on the internet with a slew of clowns streaming out of a Volkswagen. It was supposed to be an example of its roominess, but all she’d said when she saw it was, “No way!” It was ridiculous to think so many clowns could fit in that tiny damn car. The freezer was a bit roomier, but damned if there weren’t more of them inside than she’d expected.   

              Jomo was impressed again by how quick she was with the staff, how fluid her movements were as she used both ends in one hand and switched it to the other, and then did the same with both hands. She seemed to know when she needed just a quick hit and when she needed the full brunt of the staff to knock the zombies senseless, braining them with brute force. At one point she almost made a full circle with it using both her hands, as if it were nothing but a cheerleader’s baton and not a heavy stick taller than she was.

              He felt like a brute in comparison with her death dance, spearing them through the head when he could; the neck, the torso, the chest, the groin, when he couldn’t. Eventually he got around to killing the ones whose head he’d missed while they lay prone on the ground. One he’d speared all the way through the stomach, his weapon coming out its back and then sticking to a corkboard on the backroom wall.   

             
Pin the spear on the zombie,
he thought idiotically even as the not so pleased man corpse growled and reached for him, flailing both arms desperately, held out of reach by the spear’s length.

He had trouble wrestling the spear out of its gut. Lupe bashed its face in with her stick, blood fanning out like a cartoon splat against the corkboard, and went back to whatever it was she was doing before he got his weapon caught.

              Finally he wrenched it free, a coil of intestines wrapping around the end of his spear, curling halfway up the pole. He shook them free with undiluted disgust.                

              Even as fast as she was, one of the zombies caught a hold of the end of her Bo Staff, and was tugging on it, trying to pull her to him. It was Jomo’s turn to save her for once. He managed to spear it through the neck, momentarily lifting it off the ground with a sudden rush of adrenaline, tossing it aside before stomping its head on the ground. It almost took Lupe’s stick with it, but she managed to pull it free at the last instant. For creature’s that appeared so frail and broke so easily they were stronger than she first imagined. Jomo shook as much of its caved-in head off his sneaker as possible. Bits of brain still clung to the treads of the soles and stuck to the laces. He had to try not to think about that, or the way it felt when his foot came down and the head gave way underneath, first solid then yielding to a wet, spongy mush. He had to focus on the task at hand.

              A zombie came at him and Jomo brought his spear up just in time to pierce through its open hungry mouth. The metal point stuck out the back of its neck and it gagged on the pole, making horrible retching sounds as blood poured out of its mouth onto the white employee polo and the red and white Freeland’s name tag. His name might have been Bruce, or Bryce, or Brine for that matter. Only the first
Br
and the last
e
were visible. It seemed that he’d got locked up with the clientele.   

              The zombies circled them until Lupe and Jomo stood back to back, shoulder to shoulder.

              Jomo stated the obvious. “It looks like we’re surrounded.”

              “Yep,” Lupe nodded, “Only one way out for us. But for them too.”

***

              The car crashed through the doors and surrounding walls of the cabin, making the entire thing quake. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The car went halfway into the living area, two of the zombies hurtling through the air as Morris pushed down hard on the brake pedal. The horn was replaced with the squeal of the brakes, and the sudden noisy pop and poof as the airbag deployed and filled.

              The zombies were slowly rising off the ground.

Now that they were inside, the car and its driver forgotten, they noticed the three living bags of flesh in the bedroom. 

              George moved quickly to intercept them, blasting off the first one’s head with the double barrel. Lana swung the hammer at the other, which got too close for comfort as George reloaded. In her panic she had it facing the wrong way, not the blunt end she’d intended. The claw end caught the bridge of the creature’s nose between the split in the claw, causing blood to gush from it. She ripped the hammer free and the zombie’s nose came with it, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of its face. Lana screeched as the bloody faced nose-less thing kept coming at her. Xinga came in from behind her, stabbing it in the forehead with a Sai. The creature dropped.

              They looked toward the car. George had his weapon loaded and was pointing it toward the vehicle, approaching it slowly. Morris was gradually making his way out of the vehicle, nearly falling as he stumbled out.

              “That him?” George asked.

              “Yes,” Xinga said.   

              George considered shooting him on the spot, but he was still human. George opened his eyes in surprise, “Ah shit, what is this?”

              “Don’t come any closer,” George told him. 

              The other two zombies were making their way around the vehicle coming in from either side through the hole in the wall. Morris heard their groans behind him, and quickly waddled/shuffled toward the living, despite the presence of the shotgun.

              “Don’t let them get me!” Morris said. “Please don’t let them get me!”

              Just as George thought; a man who would kidnap a defenseless girl using his brawn wasn’t a man at all. The man was a coward when the shoe was on the other foot.

              “Fine, move your sniveling fat ass over here,” George said, “But just remember who’s got the gun.”

              Morris nodded. “Thank you, thank you.” He scurried over as the zombies moved in.

              “That’s far enough.”

              He was several feet from the man and the two women. The shotgun was pointed at his head.

***

              The standoff between the Marines and the feds was a massacre. The Marines fought valiantly but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Once they started firing back through the windows and the first fed was killed (a fair trade for the Marine they murdered, in Wilkes’s mind) it was a shooting gallery. Bullets from the handguns ricocheted and pinged, shattered glass, put holes in walls and bodies. The other feds ducked for cover and fired from the sides and backs of their cars, crouching down. They sent the SWAT through in their stead, geared up in full black riot gear: bullet proof vests, elbow and knee guards, and protective helmets with glass shields, coming in with a heavy barrage of machine gun fire.

              “We’re fucked,” one Marine said.

              “Yeah,” Wilkes agreed. He continued to fire in open opposition through the window, taking out as many feds as he could, and trying to hit the SWAT team where the bullets might do some damage. The doctor hid behind the couch trying to simultaneously cover his ears and his eyes in what looked like some odd back and forth pantomime.

              Wilkes screamed as he rattled off round after round from his AR-15. He was the first to go down. When they couldn’t overtake them through sheer firepower alone, the SWAT moved in, throwing canisters of tear gas through the windows and donning gas masks in place of their face shields and helmets. They took up black metal shields in their free hands. They breached the door with a battering room, coming in with guns blazing and shields raised.

              The Marines tried to cover their mouths and noses, tried to keep the tear gas from affecting them. Their eyes turned red and they began to cough, looking at each other with the same miserable conclusion- they were goners. They lifted their guns anyway and began to fire even as their eyes burned, their throats closed up, and their nasal passages were set on fire. Their resistance was brief. The SWAT moved in with high powered flashlights on top of the laser scopes on their semi-automatic rifles to pierce through the fog, and target each one of them. Even when they were completely incapacitated and were no threat to them, they targeted them with their scopes, taking each of them out, with bullets to the brain or heart.

              Even through the haze of his burning eyes and his prone retching form lying sideways beyond the couch, the doctor saw the true depth of man’s inhumanity to man, and shuddered.

              “Leave the doctor alive,” someone said.

              He didn’t think things could get any worse. That was before he saw what would happen with his formula.