36 Hours (44 page)

Infected were pouring from the sides of the airport, racing into the street. People were being thrown down and ravaged by groups of once-humans. We clambered over parked cars, nearly got hit by a few speeding ones, and reached the other side of the road. The infected came from the front entrance, flooding the airport, rushing the street. They climbed over cars, ran between the cars, into the street. Cars smashed their horns and blasted through the oncoming zombies. A car slammed on its brakes, thinking the zombies were innocents, and the zombies attacked the car. One jumped on the hood, raised his fist, and smashed it through in a spray of blood. His hand was drenched with glass and he ripped his palms tearing glass from the windshield. He reached inside, grabbing the driver, pulling her up against the straps; she screamed and beat at his face, the windows, but he bit into her face, ripping off her cheek. Blood danced on the steering wheel.

Infected spotted us and came.

Shelley opened a shoe store door and ran inside. The shoe clerk yelled, “Get out! Get out! You’ll bring them in here!” We ran past aisles of Adidas, Nike, Pacific Sunwear sandals and Everlast. The owner jumped in front of Shelley, yelling in a British accent, “Leave! Leave!” and Shelley drilled one into his face. The owner flopped into a shelf of shoes and it all tumbled down, him landing sprawled. Shelley jumped over the counter and ran into the backroom. Hannah and I followed; the door opened and infected ran inside. The owner tried to stand but the infected grabbed him, shredding him to pieces as he screamed; his blood mingled with the strewn shoes.

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

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Shelley opened an
Emergency Exit
door and we stepped into an alleyway. The sounds of carnage sounded distant now. A dumpster surrounded by flies was thrust against the graffiti-marked walls, but it was lightweight. Shelley grabbed it and began to push it on the wheels. We got behind and shoved it against the back door of the shoe store. The infected came through the backroom and tried to get us; we could hear their yelling and hammering on the dull green steel.

The alley led to a street. Parked cars were everywhere, a few moving this way and that. An Army truck rumbled past. We hid in the shadows, fearing they would shoot us in thick anxiety. We ran across the street. The streets to the left and right opened like corks, spilling the infected. People were running from the swarms.

Before us lay a wide park, riddled with a playground, picnic area, artificial pond, several trees, a mark of posterity in a consumerist world. Straddling the treetops was a beautiful skyline of skyscrapers, the tinted windows glaring in the rising morning sun. Helicopters soared overhead, blazing through the streets falling to the blending enemy. Doors of buildings were locked, people cowering in fear, praying into the morning.

The city was falling.

The man – as insane as he was – hadn’t been wrong.

The green dumpster shifted and the infected began to crawl over it. We ran across the street and onto a concrete path winding between the trees. Birds sang sad in the treetops, fluttering to and fro, hardly disturbed by the frantic mess of a fallen humanity. Our breaths stuck in our throats, our legs burned with exhaustion. Behind us the infected continued the chase, running through the alley, onto the street – and were slammed by a busload of soldiers, their heads bashing against the steel grill, giving off sprays of acrid blood. Salvation.

“Do you know the way?” I panted. The path split in several directions. Shelley kept running. “Away. Away.”

The path passed over a gurgling brook. So peaceful. I imagined lovers sitting on the banks, kissing and feeling each other.

We passed a playground. Swings, teeter-totter, slide. A little girl lay crying on the floor as her infected mother ripped into her, yanking off her arms and sending rivers of blood spreading through the wood-chips. She looked up at us as we ran, red cloth and tattered flesh in her lips; the little girl’s hair, stained with sweat, grime, dirt and blood, fell over her face as the pupils shriveled to Anthony Barnhart

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nothing and her quivering lips went still. The woman stared at us, kept chewing, looked down at her once daughter, lifted organs from her chest, and ate. Hannah ran, bent over, puked all over the concrete.

“Stop!” I yelled at Shelley. I grabbed Hannah’s hand. Shelley: “Are you crazy! We can’t stop now!”

“She’s sick!”

“So are they!” He pointed to infected coming across the stream. Hannah started running. I ran after her.

We exited the park, reaching a street. We crossed the street, barren. Police and National Guard had set up barricades between the park and the parallel streets. The infected climbed over the barricades, swatting the soldiers and policemen down. The officers of the law assaulted each other, and the soldiers fell to the ground, dropping their guns, gripping at wounds as their bodies were torn into. Infected rounded the edge of the park and came after us. The infected behind us were coming on fast.

A car was driving past us. Shelley jumped on its back. Hannah and I chased and we jumped on, too. The infected burst from the park entrance, chasing after the Sedan; we clung for our dear lives. The driver didn’t even care. Hannah closed her eyes, pressed her face against the cold back window. I said, “Don’t give out now. Don’t even think about it.”

7:00 a.m.

Rivers of blood

Rain or snow

Children of the Corn

Smashing glass, rolling thunder. Bodies being crushed under their own weight, propelled by the menace of gravity. Jumping, muscles propelling, unknowing, diving, whirling, breaking apart over the cement. The skyscrapers are harbingers of the damned – dazed, confused, suicidal, prophets of the Last Days – leaping to their dooms from the tallest rooftops, falling on sidewalks, landing on cars, breaking glass and shattering bones, baths of blood and twisted human frames.

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

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Ghosts out of hell. Leaping, jumping, crawling. The cars are overcome, artificial trenches flooded. Pressed against the walls, locked doors, barred windows, turning, howling, crying. Pain. Agony. Ripping flesh. Biting. Exhaustion. Giving up. Serenity. This is the End. Eyes rolling, lolling, yellow and bitter. Shouts, cries, all the same, never-ending, you’re not spiritual, you’re them, the time is coming, dawning, appearing, the horizon is blood red, not with the sun, but with the blood. The streets are Sodom and Gomorrah. Stragglers ripped down, torn, appalled, granted matrimony for the beings of Hell, bats out of the dark caves, the earth opens its dead – and the dead walk.

Beasts of iron and steel collide. Steam gushes from the organs. The ears open and they exit, heads bruised from the collision. They stumble about, looking this way and that, see them coming, know not what to do; pressed against the car, feeling the weight, the rancid breath, all is fair, love and war – but war is Hell.

The windows burst apart, raining glass into the sprinters. The marathon runners fall, cut up and bloodied, moaning. The fire burns them alive. They spin and whirl about, wondering,
Why,
why, why
? Feeling pain. Seeing nothing but fire. Loved ones fall, burnt, smoldering, flesh melting, bubbling, popping. Odors like nothing else. Roar of locusts. Cement chipping, breaking apart. This is the End. The great haven has collapsed. God’s wrath has been declared. No one can stop it – the breath of condemnation is cold in the whirlwind of fire. Baptism.

The car swerved onto a side-road. Infected reached up at us, grabbing at our pant legs as the car weaved through the innocent and infected. We held on for everything, every fiber of our being. To fall off was damnation. Great balls of riveting fire rose behind the airfield – tanker trucks and airplanes lit apart by the carnage.

A van jetted from a branching road, smashing the Sedan; the metal beneath us shook and twisted; the car fishtailed, the sides wrapping around the front of the Anthony Barnhart

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bent van; we were thrown through the air, landing hard on the cement. Infected ran after us.

A truck came from an alley, moving fast, turned – bearing down on us. The driver slammed his brakes; the wheels locked; he twisted the wheel to avoid hitting us and the back end flew out; the wheels left the earth and the truck tumbled, crushing three infected underneath. The truck lay on its side, smoldering. The driver released his seat belt, reached for the door; an infected broke the windshield, reaching inside; a comrade joined him and they grabbed at the driver, bloody hands wiping all over his clothes. He screamed for help, but the infected pressed against him, biting his scalp, scalping him with their teeth.

Hannah got up, took my hand. I could see the man’s hands pressing against the fogged windows as blood sprayed all over the place. Hannah yelled,

“Austin! Don’t!” I got up. Shelley gripped his arm, bruising dark blue. He said nothing and we dragged ourselves down the street as infected rounded the truck, glancing back and forth, spying those who were hurt worse, those who were slow, and taking them down. Doors on the stores were locked, emptied. Down a side street the situation was nothing better – fire gutted several buildings; infected writhed, aflame, smoldering, shrieking like banshees from the pits of Hades.

There was nowhere to go. Infected surrounded us, assaulting everyone and anything. Shelley fended off an infected, punching him in the face; when he fell, he stomped in the forehead hard, sending skull fragments into the brain. The legs and arms kicked. The infected moved in groups, attacking people left and right. Men, women, child – no one exempt, no one with an excuse. Old and young – both met the same fate: flesh opened, gutted like a poisoned fish, screaming and shrieking as arms were torn off and chunks of flesh removed in vicious bites. The deceased, no matter how wounded or emblazoned with death, would wobble to their feet, look around, spy a satisfaction for crooked hunger, and act on it.

A father turns his head, bursts into tears. His two five-year-old twin boys struggle beneath him, drowning in the bathtub. He prays the Lord’s prayer as he does it. They come to a stop; he removes his hands. Their faces are bloated, purple, eyes wide. He stands, dizzy. The bathroom door splinters apart; hands reach after him, a Anthony Barnhart

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voice shrieks. He raises the knife, lets it shine in the moonlight, swears at the beast in the window, says goodbye to his wife, and slits his throat. Blood sprays the glass and he watches himself, dizzy, and collapses against the door. The hands tear at his hair.

A church. The stained glass shimmers with the heat of the killing. The priest crosses himself, walks out through the huddled congregation. The doors rattle and shake. Snarls emit from the darkness. The confessions box is empty. The glass windows shudder. The priest passes out a communion tray; a bit of bread, some juice. They quietly eat the bread. Glass shatters to pieces; hands reached inside, arms tearing against the jagged glass. Yel ow eyes, mottled skin, sunken eyes, furled lips fill the broken gaps, drooling with vile saliva and blood. Jaws stained red with victims now risen. The congregation crosses themselves, pray to Mary, and drink the communion juice. Immediately they begin to twitch, cry out. The glasses drop, breaking on the floor. They pitch forward, lean back, spit up, convulse. One by one they drop to the floor, kicking and howling, bodies riddled with pain. One by one they silence and lay still, sprawled with faces drenched in sterile agony. The priest stands underneath the statue of Jesus on the cross, drinks his fill, kneels down. The glass windows break and the infected rush inside; they spot him, the only one remaining, and rush him. His muscles begin to tremor but he doesn’t experience the pain. He sees Jesus, and feels the teeth on his neck.

A teenager fills the gun with bullets, sluggishly. Cocaine and cigarettes and beer and rolled pot lie everywhere. The room is bathed in the smoke of drugs and incense and mushroom candles. Six shells. Six people. One by one they take the gun, pull the trigger. The furniture behind them drips with body fluid and skull shells. Their bodies pitch back. The next person takes the gun from stiff hands, rolls the clip, presses it into their throat, closes their eyes, and pull the trigger.

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The earth is spread beneath her. She feels the ground beneath her, then nothing. A pit wells inside her. She falls, free-style, letting the wind catch her, flying. Spread beneath is fire, running, hollering, a bloodbath. It grows closer. She thinks this is nice. So much better. Infected look up at her as she falls on top of them. She feels the impact tear through her; she is shifting, each movement breaking organs and bones, and she sees sky, hits her head, and then nothing.

They lie in bed, hearing the nightmare unfolding. He holds her hand, and his other arm is on her arm. A small bite is bleeding. He doesn’t care. He kisses her lips. She smiles back at him, so faintly. He doesn’t care. She will die, and he will join her. They were one in sex, one in marriage – they shall be one in death. Her skin is beginning to turn. She feels sick. He undoes her thong and slips on top of her. She is breathing hard. Her eyes are sinking. He keeps kissing her. Only a few moments…

We climbed on top of the cars, leapt from hood to the back of the next car, like leaping from stones. The infected groped at the sides of the cars. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall… There was someone in one of the buildings. Shelley jumped down, so did Hannah. An infected reached up at me as I stood on the Beatle. I kicked her in her face and she fell backwards. I jumped down on the other side, landing on a gutter. I grabbed the grill and lifted it; infected came at us; I fended them off with the grill, a small shield, but it worked. It kept their mouths away from me. One grabbed the grill and hurled it to the side. Hannah appeared at my side with a branch from one of the tropical trees; she bashed the beast in the head, sent him to the ground. I grabbed my own branch; the dead wood cracked easily.