Hunger Driven: A Zombie Short Story (6 page)

Leaning over the roof of the truck, I set up the four little rifles and opened the backpack to withdraw extra filled magazines.  In addition to the ones I routinely used, these twenty loaded magazines represented my ready reserve.  I rotated through the various mags regularly, careful to prevent the springs from setting up from being left loaded for too long.

In seconds, I was up and shooting, cutting down the approaching dead with practiced accuracy.  With this number, I just worked in an arc, killing everything that crossed my sights.  Some leakers still managed to close on the truck and I would pause every magazine change to pick off these threats before they got close to my firing platform.  With the Golden Wok at my back, I had no worry of hitting survivors by accident.

Losing track of time, I steadily mowed down the hapless stragglers.  When I entered this state, I felt no emotion, suffered no doubts and harbored no regrets.  This was the real, secret reason I did this job.  When I was in the zone, nothing could hurt me.  I could die, of course, but that would come soon enough no matter what.  But, with my mind fully engaged in this fugue, I think it was called, I didn’t feel the death of my family quite as much.  So that was something.

Four hundred, more or less, meant I took a little over an hour to knock down the walking dead.  For the time being, I generally ignored the crawlers.  They were mainly outside my sight line and not part of the grim equation.  Six a minute.  Firing every ten seconds.  Three hundred sixty in an hour.  At this range I really didn’t even need the little scopes as I moved from one target to the next.  Squeeze, bang.  Squeeze, bang.  Squeeze, bang. 

Before I finished, two of the rifles suffered jams that I couldn't spare the time to clear, so they went to the side.  Problems to be dealt with later.  I continued to check my surroundings every mag change, and ended up carefully cutting down a handful of grasping zombies who managed to work their way up to the tailgate unseen.  No fear touched me as I killed them, the tallest one’s grasping thin air within a foot of my back before I noticed his presence.  Crap, that kid must have been nearly seven feet tall, I thought coldly as I shot him between the eyes.  Had to have been the starting center for their basketball team.  Might have done good in college, if not for the whole zombie apocalypse thing.

Of course, that could be said for all of us, zombie and living alike.  What might have been, if not for the end of our civilization.  The end of the world as we knew it.

CHAPTER FIVE

After dropping the last tottering dead man in front of me, I released the rifle and rolled my head to the side checked the area that way.  Clear.  Repeating the motion to the other side, I saw the same.  Surely there would be crawlers but the walking dead seemed to be handled.  For the moment.

Standing up straight, I shrugged my shoulders and felt vertebrae shift uncomfortably.  Jeez, I hoped I hadn’t done any permanent damage over the last few days.  Low recoil did not mean no recoil, and hours of holding in an unnatural position while shooting was hard on muscles and tendons drawn taut. 

Well, worst case, I’d see what Dr. Singh prescribed.  I’d scavenged plenty of muscle relaxants for my medical kit, but I wanted a doctor’s advice.  Especially since my chiropractor was almost certainly stumbling around looking for fresh meat.  Almost all of Houston ended up that way, after all.

Pulling off my ear protectors, I sat them aside and sucked in a lung full of air, nearly choking.  The air still stank of the putrefying dead as well as spent cordite and the annoying trace of burning car.  At least I’d managed to put down the flaming zombies before they managed to set the rest of the town on fire.

Switching rifles, I inserted one of the few remaining full magazines and chambered a round.  My hands, especially my right hand, felt swollen under the gloves and again, I hoped against permanent damage.  Carpal Tunnel was a real threat, too, I realized.

As I scanned the surrounding township with my binoculars, I caught sight of a stray zombie here and there, usually so mobility damaged that even a stumbling step seemed too much.  Those would be crawlers soon, I figured.

Speaking of which, I nearly stepped on one, climbing down from the tailgate.  Pausing in midstride, I looked down at the pathetic creature.  Legs shorn off raggedly above the knees, the monster waved at me with hands bereft of fingers, apparently abraded away by the rough asphalt.  One eye missing, the other milky orb seemed to be trying to track my presence.

Sighing, I lowered the rife and absently sent a round through the creature’s forehead.  I barely had to aim, and the only thing I noticed was the pain in my finger, radiating up my forearm, as I squeezed the trigger.

Stepping around the now still corpse, I felt my body sag with exhaustion and slung the rifle over my shoulder.  My other shoulder carried the messenger bag, now considerably lighter as the few remaining reloaded magazines rattled inside.  Other than that faint metallic clicking, the area was now eerily quiet.  So much so that I wondered if my hearing had been damaged as well.

Add it to the list, I thought with a sigh, and forced myself over to inspect the two corpses I’d clocked when I first arrived.  The first died, again, of what looked like blunt force trauma to the head.  Part of the skull appeared to have been caved in from repeated blows.  That was harder than the movies made it look, I had learned.

The second sported a cored out right eye, with the wound going all the way through to the brain.  A small caliber pistol shot, I surmised, and from extremely close range judging from the powder tattoo around the entry wound.  That meant somebody inside was packing more than a tire iron after all.  So, I would need to brush up on my diplomatic skills.

Using my hand to shield some of the early afternoon sun, I peered in through the glass window nearby, and spied a jumble of bamboo chairs and metal framed tables forming a crude barricade.  Blocking my view and maybe giving the women inside a few minutes protection against a small pod surging against the weight.

In their favor, I saw not one sign of recent habitation.  Zombies were not primarily visual hunters, not with their messed up sight, but sometimes their eyes did register movement.  No movement, no sound, and usually no more interest.  That’s been the rule, and was one reason I was so shocked when the ghouls kept coming at me the other day.  Almost none of them seemed capable of retaining even short-term memories of prey.  If that was changing, we would suddenly have a whole lot more problems.

And that would be a problem for tomorrow, and the tomorrows to come.  Now I needed to do my bit here.

The front door was barred from the inside, with what looked like a deadbolt engaged.  I gave the frame a little shake and stepped back.  I knocked, rapping out shave-and-a-haircut.  Still no response.

“Okay, ladies,” I said, loud enough my voice should carry inside, “my name is Brad and I am here to help.  I work for the Texas Army National Guard as a civilian clearance specialist.  I can provide directions and transportation assistance to the nearest Safe Zone if you are interested.”

That was the standard spiel all of us learned to recite.  “Us” meaning civilian contractors, or clearance specialists.  That usually meant guys who could run dozers and such who were recruited to help pile up the bodies.  Others did specific salvage work, like cleaning out hardware stores for electrical materials or the like.  Most of them went armed but didn’t expect to run into trouble, living or dead.  For the moment, I was the only one crazy enough to be doing these kinds of rough clearance jobs.  Others had tried but for one reason or another never stuck around too long.  Mainly because of the risks, or the smell.  Or insufficiently crazy.

I occasionally do see folks, but usually they just run away.  Or shoot at me.  I tried not to take it personally, but really the living were more dangerous than the dead.  You shoot at me, I will shoot back.  And not with the 22 either.

“How do we know you’re for real?”

I forced myself not to react to the voice, which came from over my shoulder and to the left.  She made her way up to me quietly, I’ll give her credit.  She must have braved the back door and circled around the building.

Holding up my hands slowly, I turned to show her my empty palms.

“Ma’am, I have no reason to lie.  I hope you didn’t mind me disposing of that biker trash but from what I’ve heard of the Tarantulas, they weren’t trying to sell you Amway.  Or give you a parade escort, either.”

“That was you?  From where?”

The woman’s voice held curiosity but her hands didn’t waver as she cradled the tiny pistol.  The message was clear: she was willing to listen but her trust would be hard to earn.  That was fine.  I didn’t want or need her trust.  I just needed to carry out the bare minimum of courtesy as required by the Guard.  Help refugees find their way to a safe zone.  I considered just handing her a map and walking away.  I’d been three days without a shower and over twenty four hours without sleep.  I’d never been much of a people person anyway, which was why numbers had appealed to me so much, even as a child.  The Zombie Apocalypse just added to my natural inclination.

“Top of the Dollar General, ma’am.  That’s where I was set up for this rough clearance job.  You just happened to drive through the tail end of this little project.”

“No kidding?  Clearing the town?  Where is the rest of your team?”

“Ma’am, you’re looking at it.  Good help is hard to find these days so I am working solo at the moment.”

Telling her this was a calculated risk.  If I’d said my partner was covering her with a sniper rifle she might not make an untoward move, but then when I couldn’t produce the threatened backup she might have trouble believing anything else I said.  Now, though, she knew I was alone and she could act with no restraint.

I could tell she wasn’t expecting my answer.  Her dark blue eyes seemed to cloud with confusion for a moment.

“Seriously?  Are you crazy?  Nobody goes outside to take a leak by themselves.  How can you help survivors if you’re working alone?”

I gave her a tight smile that didn’t touch my eyes.  I knew, because I’d practiced smiling in front of a mirror. After somehow surviving the First Wave, my lips could move to form the appearance but I no longer felt any emotion worth smiling over.  I figured I was just broken inside, but Roxy said I was still healing.

“I’m not here to help survivors, ma’am.  My job is to eradicate the bulk of the dead inside the town, so a cleanup crew can come in and conduct a door-to-door fine clearance.  That’s typically military, with some civilian augments as well.

“However,” I continued, “in the event I do run into survivors, I am obliged to render certain basic assistance.  It’s in the rules.  But please, before I go any further, would you please lower your weapon?  I don’t want to die with the stigma of being taken down with a Raven 25.  Those things have a well earned reputation for going off if you happen to sneeze.”

That earned snort but the pistol dropped to a low ready position. 

“So says the man shooting a 22.  Or is that a pellet gun?”

I nodded, accepting her jab good naturedly.

“The right tool for the job.  Just like the 30-06 was the right tool for taking out those bikers.  This little baby,” I briefly touched the sling on my shoulder, “features a light round, doesn’t usually overpenetrate, and it is easy to find more.  I can carry five times as many rounds of 22LR as I can the 30-06 for the same weight.”

“And so you…clear the area of infected and what?”

Right there, she gave me the Look.  That horrified, stricken look I get from some survivors when they realize what I really do.  Exterminate the creatures that used to be their loved ones.  Now, mindless, dead things that feed on the living, but still…

“Lady, I’m just here to help make this place livable again.  Plus, the Guard and the civilian survivors they support need the salvage available in the stores and private homes.”

“But there’s hundreds of them.  Thousands.  People.”

I shook my head sadly.

“No, they used to be people.  Now they’re just dead things that won’t lie down unless you put them there.  Dead things that want to eat you.”

I sighed.  Her attitude was understandable, reasonable even, but also part of why we lost everything.  I decided to change the subject.

“Look, can we talk about this inside?  I’d be glad to help get your group moving again, and even give you a map to point you in the right direction.  Right now, though, we are kind of exposed standing out here.”

The young lady nodded and carefully slipped the small pistol into a large side pocket on what I realized were scrub pants.  Like they wear in hospitals.

“Hey, is anybody going to come looking for you?  Or those four guys I killed?”

She nodded, and looked away briefly.  I took the opportunity to check her out more closely.  She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with dark blonde hair and a face that might have been attractive if not for the dark circles rimming her eyes.  I wondered if she was sick, then worried she might be infected.  But her eyes looked fine, other than a little bloodshot.  I decided she was simply as exhausted as I felt.  From her gaunt appearance, I figured food as well as sleep had been in short supply for quite some time.  She was running on little more than determination and a big dash of desperation.