Chaos Theory: A Zombie Novel (5 page)

Now multiply that sound times one hundred as the fifty dead bastards in that back alley streamed toward us en-mass.

Domestic Troubles

I heard the tell-tale crunching of shoes on glass in the dark barbershop behind us, but as there was no place else to go, I ran back inside with Ship hot on my heels. He slammed the door extra hard, so it was extra loud. I couldn’t see any dead yet, as they hadn’t made it to the small corridor from the main room to the back room. I raised my rifle to deal with the first of the mini-horde that would be approaching from the shop, but I heard a door open behind me and the strong fingers of death on my shoulder.

It was Ship, he had found another door with a set of stairs going up. He dragged me through the door and I shut it quickly. It was a flimsy interior door that a cat could scratch through given the time. A cheap knock off of a Home Depot fifty dollar special. Some draped Charmin would have slowed our antagonists better, and I could have used some right then anyway if you catch my meaning. Pounding had already begun on the back door, and it was only a matter of time before every pus sack in the area found our little sanctuary.

I thundered up the stairs after Ship, who hadn’t made a sound, to another door, this one open and beckoned us into its shadowy maw. Ship stopped dead…poor choice of words…at the top landing, and let me tell you, in a three-foot-wide stairwell, there was no getting past this man. An octagonal window let moonlight in to illuminate my friend’s enormous frame. He cocked his head almost imperceptibly, then pulled his machete. I thought my machete was all tough and mean looking, but his looked like the wing from a Boeing as he cleaved the air in front of him. Turns out it wasn’t air, but a dead woman looking for an evening nibble. She dropped like a hot rock, her head split in two down to her trachea, and Ship yanked his weapon out of her noggin.

What seemed like a steel cage melee was going on below us; I can only imagine that the inside horde had missed our side door as I initially had and opened the back door to confront the pounding of the outsiders. I had a brief moment of levity when I considered that the two groups could pound on either side of the door for eternity with only bloody stumps remaining before they realized they were hunting spoiled game.

Ship stepped farther inside the room, which turned out to be a kitchen, and I came in after him. He shut the door, and to my relief, it was somewhat sturdier than the one below, but still not made of three inch Chobham with offensive lasers on the outside. I stood watch on yet two more doors that led out of the kitchen, while Ship pushed the fridge up against the door. It was on wheels, so he tipped it over in its side and gently lowered it to the ground. As an afterthought, he opened it, reaching in and grabbing two cool bottles of water. I remember thinking it was absolutely freezing in that kitchen above a barbershop, so why wasn’t the water, which was in the fridge, cold too? We put our packs on the floor.

Movement in the shadows from the left side door made me ready and I dropped my water. I nudged Ship with my boot and he nodded and pointed to the other door. He shone the light on his gun into the darkness, and I once again thought how stupid I was for not remembering I had one too. I fumbled with my light for a second before it popped on, and I had one second to pan it into the doorway before the horror that was in there crawled out.

It was a kid. A little boy that had never done anything but watch SpongeBob while eating Captain Crunch on a Saturday morning. People had loved this boy, and he had loved too, but this virus or whatever the fuck was happening had turned this precious child into a
thing
. I sobbed as I saw this mockery of life drag itself toward me, scrabbling with one arm, the other missing. He was wearing bloody Spiderman pajamas that used to be blue. Fat, salty tears fell to the floor as this pathetic creature mewled and scratched. I wiped my eyes and moved forward to end his misery with the butt of my rifle.

When it was done, I sat down on the bed and cried. The moonlight shone through the curtainless window and glinted off a series of photos hanging on the wall. One had fallen off and smashed on the floor, probably during whatever struggle had ensued when whoever had been infected up here turned. I picked it up and shook out the glass slivers. Holding up the picture to the moonlight only made me sadder. The boy had been so God damned cute in life. Blonde hair and blue eyes, sitting on his little red bicycle, his good-looking mom on the left and his strapping dad on the right. His mom looked like any loving mom and wife prior to all this. She was looking at her son with nothing less than adoration in the picture. The kid’s dad was… His dad…

His dad!

I whipped my head up when I heard the slapping of feet running down the wooden slats of the hall. This was not the stumble of a zombie, and Ship, big as he was, never made a damn sound when he moved. I dropped the photo and raised my rifle at the same time. The tactical light illuminated yet another revulsion, as what used to be Dad tore into the room. This former father threw his hands up in front of his face when the tac light hit him in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. I would like to say that I used that moment to pull off some crafty tactic, or Houdini my ass out of there, but honestly I was just trying to keep my shit on the interior so I wouldn’t need to change my drawers on the run. The dad-thing recovered exceptionally quickly and he threw himself at me, hissing.

I yanked the trigger on my M4 and not a damn thing happened. I was still pulling the trigger when Dad tackled me and we both toppled off the bed, me on my ass and him on top of me. He threw his head back to scream that scream that they scream before he turned me into fillets, and I did the stupidest thing in the history of mankind. I reached up with both hands and grabbed his head. I drew it to me using all the strength I had, and I sunk my teeth into his neck. I ripped out a chunk of meat that would have made a great white shark proud, gagged, and spit it back at him. Dad’s left hand was on the wound, as if it could stem the flow of his life’s blood, and I looked into his eyes and saw the only other emotion other than hatred that these things can display. Surprise. He looked right back at me, and if he could have spoken, doubtless he would have said: 
Are you fucking shitting me?

The sentiment turned from surprise to rage in the time it would take a fat kid to snatch a doughnut. He was going to kill me before he bled out. Well fuck him. No. I punched that infected prick right in his Adam’s apple. Bastard wasn’t gonna yell and alert his buddies either. Now both of his hands were fastened on his own neck, and he was making a sound like
Gah!
but it was weak and quiet like he was choking. He tried to stand, but I was having none of that, and I grabbed his filthy flannel shirt and rolled on top of him. I pulled my knife and drove it through his left eye and his struggles ceased immediately, his hands dropping to his sides.

His son’s body was right next to us.

Ship appeared out of nowhere, looked at the bodies, and dragged me to my feet. I was spitting blood and my sweatshirt was covered in gore. He shone his light on me and searched for a bite mark, but I was still pissed and I pushed him away. Well, I pushed him and fell on my ass because it was like trying to push a continental plate. He helped me up and held his flashlight to his face.
Where did he bite you?
he mouthed slowly.

“He didn’t. I fucking bit him,” I said, spitting for emphasis. “Now let’s get out of here before the hundred zombies that are in this building figure out where we are.”

For the second time in thirty seconds, I got the
are you shitting me
look. It was just as frustrating from the uninfected.

We moved to the kitchen from the bedroom and into the little boy’s bedroom. The kid had an Iron Man poster on the wall and one of those Wal-Mart plastic container thingies full of
Legos on the floor. I just remember the Iron Man and Legos is all, they stuck. We both searched for another way out, but there was no other exit. The first thud hit the door to the kitchen at about that time and it sent tendrils of ice down my back, and my nuts shriveled even further up.

We were on the second floor, but it was still a good fifteen foot drop if we decided on it. I would most likely just turn an ankle, but if Ship hit the ground from that height, there would undoubtedly be a geological event. We searched the living room and even the pantry. I had an idea of an attic trapdoor, but like the beer-toting hotties, that was another birthday candle wish that wasn’t happening.

The door was taking a serious beating and the frame was starting to crack when I looked in the kitchen. The fridge had moved away from the door an inch or two as well. We frantically looked for anything to help us, but there wasn’t even anything larger than an end table to hide behind, and all the interior doors were reminiscent of the door that led upstairs. Under the bed or in a closet would end with us as bowel movements if these things took dumps, so that was out too.

I was searching the kid’s room for a lightsaber or time displacement equipment when I had an epiphany and threw open his window. Attached to the side of the building was a fire ladder, bolted to the brick with big ass masonry bolts. Our secret was most assuredly out, so I yelled to Ship to get his ass in here, it was time to flee.

He made it into the room with both packs, as I climbed out on the ladder and the kitchen door gave way. I heard the refrigerator slide across the shitty linoleum and figured the jig was up. Ship tossed the packs out the window and they landed hard in the snow.

Now picture a four hundred pound guy trying to squeeze through a window and grab a ladder. Keep in mind this guy was recently shot in the dome, so he’s not all there anyway. The dead were coming, and poor old Shipster got his giant ass as stuck as a roach in a motel. They check in, but they don’t check the F out. He looked at me, and I honestly thought I saw fear for a moment. It was the first and only time I would ever see that on his face, although he would tell me later that he was scared shitless on many occasions.

Yes, you figured it out, our gallant and valiant hero ain’t gonna buy it right here.

Ship put his hands on the bottom of the top window and pushed. The thing snapped into glass-laden kindling and the big guy was free. Lacerated but free. Blood rained down on me from his wounds, and I saw him kicking his right leg as one of the zombies, a dentist or doctor by the look of him, had latched on. Of course as Ship kicked, the damn ladder became unstable because as I may have mentioned on one or two occasions, the man is big.

The zombie was unceremoniously dragged through the window, and a wad of pant leg must not have been enough to support it because it fell the aforementioned fifteen feet to the frozen ground. Its pals were already climbing through the gaping hole in zombie family’s house, and they too fell like lemmings.

In true superhero fashion, I clenched my sphincter, and unclenched my hands from the rungs and slid that last eight feet or so down the ladder while holding on to the frame. Ship copied my unfathomable awesomeness and did the same, his thud infinitely more resounding than my own, landing like the guy in the poster on the zombie kid’s wall.

Of course now we were on the ground with a couple hundred dead cannibals on the way, some even raining from above. Oh, and well-armed rednecks, don’t forget the rednecks.

And I know what you’re thinking. I know it, and you know I know it. The answer to your unasked question, the one you’ve been holding on to, is yes, dude tasted exactly like chicken.

Run!

Have you ever been shot at? It’s not fun. Wondering if that next sound is the bullet that will hit you is a terrible thing. I understand that the shot gets there before the sound does depending on the range, but still, it’s the noise that scares you the most. That
Pap! Pap!
sound and then brick shatters next to you, or a window blows out, or a zombie jerks a little and shit flies out of it. The anticipation of the pain, not knowing how much it will hurt. If the round will hit you in the knee, or the throat, or God forbid, in the testicles. If you’re a lady and you’re reading this, you can’t understand what that means. Hell, not having been shot there, I can’t fully get it, and I’ve got nuts. Big ones.

Regardless, there were zombies to the left of us, rednecks to the right, and there I was, stuck in the middle again. A thud behind me reminded me that it was also raining dead people. I tried to fire my rifle again, but nothing happened. I was in such a panic and so pissed off that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong and I yelled to Ship to tell him so.

He took one five-foot step and turned my gun on its side. He flipped a switch and pointed at the gaggle of zombies off to the left, the look of reproach and disgust on his face was worse than those of my seventh grade soccer pals when I scored a goal against my own team.
That
sucked, let me tell you.

I pulled the trigger and a round fired. I had had the safety engaged. Hey, I told you, I wasn’t the gun-toting type of criminal.

Ship was busy firing at the yokels who had ducked behind some abandoned vehicles and the dead folks on the right. I had chosen the forehead of a dead man in overalls with no shirt on as my first target. I gently pulled the trigger and was rewarded with my first long-distance rifle kill. It was about a hundred feet away, and it was yet another fat woman from New Hampshire. I totally missed the guy I was aiming for.

Hey, it was dark, people were shooting at us, zombies trying to eat us, and I was a rifle virgin. I squeezed off a few more shots, and to my delight dropped two more creatures, including Mr. Overalls. By this time, the clodhoppers had their own problems, as a moderate-sized horde was flanking them from the right.

Ship decapitated one of the dead folks that had come from zombie kid’s room with a backhand swing, and it was time to go. The big man grabbed both packs, and handing me one, we escaped through the thinned herd that Ship had blasted. They were grab-assing as we moved through them, but the only one that actually succeeded in grabbing me was a teenage girl, and my buddy cut her hand off with his machete before she could take advantage. None of them got close to Ship. Guy was a monster, but also damn fleet of foot.

We made it to a boarded up house, a failed last stand so it would seem, and we moved in quickly. I heard screams from outside, and I could only guess that one of the bad guys hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caught. Good. F him.

I thought we would hole up in the house for a bit, but Ship plowed right through and we went out the back slider. A six-foot stockade fence surrounded the large back yard, and Ship barely slowed down as he crashed through it. He made a sharp left, and we moved quickly through the back yards of several houses and into a church parking lot. I was having trouble keeping up with him, and he noticed and stopped briefly. Heaving, I whispered my desire to know what the plan was, and he motioned me to follow. He ran up the back steps of the church, and down the street we heard the snowmobiles fire up again. The hicks were getting the Duck out of Fodge. Apparently, they had either written us off as dead or escaped, or they were getting swarmed.

Ship looked under a planter and came out with a key, which he used to open the back door. We hurried through, and he closed and locked it. He put his hand on my shoulder, and when I tried to move he stopped me. It was pitch black, so I couldn’t see what he was trying to tell me if he was trying to communicate at all. I just stood still, trying to catch my breath. I could hear him trying to listen. I swear I could hear him trying to focus over my intake of breath. He took a step and grabbed my hand. It scared the shit out of me, but I figured out quickly enough that he wanted me to follow him. Ship pulled me forward, and as I said, I couldn’t see diddly.

We moved into the room a little farther and he deemed it OK to switch on his tac light, letting go of my hand when it came on. There was a short set of wooden steps up to huge ornate door, and the moment Ship put his gigantic foot on the first stair, it let out a creak that told everyone in North America where we were.

The door flew open, and we were looking down the four barrels of two exceptionally large double-barreled shotguns behind which was a room bathed in light.

“Ship!” One of the shotty wielders whisper-yelled, “Damn son, what the hell are you doing out here?”

“For Christ’s sake, Ernie, let him in and close the damn door!”

Both weapons were lowered and we moved up the steps. Ernie closed the door behind us, the other man clasping Ship’s enormous paw. “We just heard a ruckus outside, big fella, was that you?”

Ship nodded and pulled me forward. “What’s your name, son? Mine’s Dick.”

Dick? Has anyone been called Dick since the fifties?

I told them my name, shook both their hands, and we all sat down in front of a small fireplace in an antechamber of the church.

They looked at all the blood on me, and the bandage on Ship’s head, and gave each other a sideways glance. I told them that even though the big man’s noggin looked busted, and I was absolutely drenched in gore, neither of us was infected and that seemed to placate them. We then traded stories, me leaving out being bitten, and of course biting.

Ernie and Dick had been working on the grounds when the shit hit, volunteers and whatnot. People were being bitten, with zombies and Runners everywhere. The two had some shotguns in Ernie’s truck, as they were going to do a little illegal deer hunting after they had winterized the church. The reverend had called them inside to tend to a young woman with a bite on her neck. The men helped as best they could, and with no family in the area for either of them, they decided to hold up in the church and began to reinforce the front doors. When finished, they returned to the pews, where they had left the reverend and the girl, only to find that the girl had eaten the reverend while he was probably giving the last rites. Trying to reason with either of the infected proved fruitless, so they put them down with the shotguns.

They had been here ever since. Plenty of food and water were in the pantry, and the only exterior doors into the chapel were the gigantic front doors, and two fire doors that had been secured. The antechamber door was the only other exterior door and it was locked and extremely solid. All the windows into the church were stained glass with iron frames and inserts and above chest level on the outside. They even had a sniper/look-out spot in the bell tower.

They’d had zero contact with the outside world though and hadn’t seen anyone, other than the odd truckload of hillbillies, but that was getting rare.

“You boys is the first livin’ souls we’ve seen in about a week. When’s the army gonna get here and clean up all these crazy folks?”

Ship and I looked at each other and then back at Ernie. “Oh shit. How bad is it out there?” he demanded.

“Bad. I don’t think there’s a lot left. No cops or social services of any kind. I haven’t heard of any Army guys anywhere since I left Boston, and they were pulling out.”

“Pullin’ outta what?”

“They were leaving Boston because they were getting their asses kicked. Calling it a day. Quitting. The zombies were killing everyone and making more zombies. And it wasn’t just Boston. Every major city, and most of the smaller ones, had outbreaks.”

Ernie looked at Dick, then back at me. “So there ain’t no Army no more?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, it’s bad.”

They both just nodded and seemed resigned to the fate of the country. At this point, none of us knew the extent of this plague. We didn’t know that the entire planet was screwed.

“Well, at least we’re safe in here,” Dick sighed.

Ship and I once again glanced in each other’s direction. “Uh, I don’t think you’re safe in here Dick.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Didja see them doors, son?” He pointed to where the large front doors would be in the chapel proper. “Or the one we let you through? Them doors is damn strong,
and
we done reinforced ‘em. They’ll hold out a hunnert o’ them sick folks.”

Ship began writing in his book, but I beat him to the punch. “What about a thousand? What about ten thousand? Would those doors hold back ten thousand people trying to get in? OK, forget them getting in, what about you getting out? Let’s say they don’t even try to get in here, which is unlikely by the way. What happens in a month, when you’re chewing on your last piece of spam and drinking your own piss? You won’t make it twenty feet before they get you. Then there’s the rednecks, who might just kill you ‘cause it’s fun.”

“This is New Hampshire boy, we’s all rednecks.”

“Sorry,
evil
rednecks.”

“Son, I’m tellin’ you—”

“No Dick, I’m sorry, but I’m telling you. You can’t stay here. Not in a town full of—”

“Sickies?” interrupted Ernie.

“They’re not
sick
, guys. They’re
dead
.”

It was their turn for sideways glances. Ernie folded his hands, put his elbows on his knees and looked at me. “Now I know we just met and all, but are you touched, boy?”

Dick did the opposite of Ernie and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. He shook his head. “Dead folks don’t get up and walk around.”

I stood. “They do now. I’ve seen them crawling around with half of them missing. No insides. No heart or lungs. You getting the picture? There’s no way they could be alive. Well, not all of them. The ones that run, they’re alive, but the moment you shoot one, it dies and gets back up. Oh, and they all want to eat us for some reason.”

“Explains the bites I guess, but I ain’t buyin’ they’s dead.” Ernie looked at my large companion. “What do you say, Ship?”

He spun his book around so they could read it:

DEAD!

Ship folded his arms, finished.

“This is too much voodoo fer me,” said Dick, “so what do we do?”

“We leave,” I said. “We pack some shit and literally head for the hills.”

“Boy, I’m sixty eight years old. Ernie is a might older.” Ernie brandished a middle finger. “We can’t be runnin’ around at all, let alone in winter. And we’s already in the hills.”

“So you’re going to stay here?”

“Yup. You boys is welcome to stay too.”

Ship looked sad when he passed me the book:
Dick is right. They won’t make it out there, and they’ll slow us down.

Well, he was right about that. We’d probably be a lunch buffet if we tried to assist these guys outside the church. At least here they would have food and water and relative safety for a while. Every point I made as to why they shouldn’t stay reverberated through my skull for a second, but the bottom line was that these poor guys were better off staying here.

Ship and I left the following night. We said our goodbyes, and the boys tried to give us some food to take but we told them to keep it.

Ship left the key to the back door with Ernie, and the moment the door clicked closed, I was reminded of my first night in prison, except this time my sentence was in Hell.

Fifteen seconds after we left the church, we were passing by a chain link fence, and one of the pus bags saw us. It rattled the fence and caterwauled for all it was worth, alerting every damn thing in the vicinity to our location.

And they came.

So we ran.

The friggin ALICE pack weighed a ton, but I kept up with the big guy as best as I could. We evaded instead of engaged, and we got all the way to the end of the street before it all went to shit.

I felt a tug in my shoulder and heard a loud noise close by, and then I spun around and fell. The pain guy turned the volume way the hell up, and my vision went all green for a moment. A roaring in my ears commenced, and I was barely able to hear Ship’s rifle as he fired in full auto off to the left. He smoked two pus bags that got close, then helped me to my feet. The roaring was getting louder and I must have been a little off because Ship slapped me. I blinked and told him my shoulder hurt. He nodded and held up his hand; it was covered in blood.

Somebody shot me.

The big guy practically dragged me off to cover, but the zombies, all of them I think, were on the way. We couldn’t stay where we were, so we moved off toward the woods, cutting through backyards. I made it another two hundred yards or so and then the dizziness set in hard. The world was moving away from me down green tunnel, and all of a sudden everything felt totally fine.