Machines of the Dead

Chapter 21

The first glimmerings of early morning sunshine illuminated the sky. A parking lot stretched out before the group. A few cars took up spaces. The air was cold, a wintry wind chilling Jack’s sweaty neck and face. Looking around, he saw no one. Not a single human being. He immediately knew they weren’t in Manhattan; the three story apartment buildings across the street were too short and there was no skyline above. So they had to be in Brooklyn or Queens.

“Where are we?” Maria asked.

“Not sure, but it isn’t Manhattan,” Zaun answered.

“Where the hell is everyone?”

Jack heard nothing. Not a car, truck, plane or the simple buzz of city life. Maybe all the boroughs were evacuated, for precaution, but why? It was impossible to leave Manhattan, wasn’t it? No, that wasn’t true, as they themselves had escaped. He imagined others might have too. Was it even possible to evacuate a city the size of New York?

To the right was another warehouse building. “We need to put as much distance between us and Reynolds’ men as possible.” Jack wanted to head to the apartment buildings across the street, find people, but they would be out in the open, having to cross the parking lot and the street, making it easy for Reynolds’ men to see where they went.

Instead, they headed to the adjacent building on the right, ran passed the locked entrance, and ducked around the corner. They sprinted to the rear of the place to where a back alley stood and took a right, going behind another warehouse building.

Up ahead, a man wearing a mail carrier’s uniform was standing with his back to the group.

The man turned around as they approached. Jack stopped and the others bumped into him. Half the carrier’s face was missing, looking as if it had been shoved under a lawn mower, the skull completely showing on one side. The zombie started forward, arms out, hungry for flesh.

“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “It can’t be.” He knew it was true though, his gut telling him so since the warehouse. “The bots made it out of Manhattan.” He pulled the. 45 from its holster, prepared to shoot, when Zaun stopped him.

“That’ll make too much noise,” he said. “Let me.”

Zaun stepped forward and removed his sword from its sheath. He met the zombie halfway and sliced off its head. After wiping the blade clean on the undead guy’s shirt, he re-sheathed his weapon.

Jack felt his legs want to give out. He was exhausted. The bot epidemic had spread, hopefully just to the Long Island-Brooklyn-Queens area and not to the mainland. Of course, that was ridiculous, but he still thought there was a chance it could be true.

“I need to sit,” Jack said. “Rest.”

“I think we all do,” Maria said. “And we need shelter; it’s too cold to stay outside and hope to catch some shut-eye. There might not be many undead around here now, but that could all change in an instant.”

“Yeah,” Zaun said. “They might all be in the buildings, but one sound and we’ll have them coming after us.”

They all agreed that shelter was the most important thing. The warehouse they were currently behind was most likely empty, where as the apartment buildings across the street were probably crawling with undead. Jack didn’t like being only a block away from the operations center, but getting off the street was essential.

They worked their way along the rear of the building, coming to a one-way street, with a large, factory-like building on the other side. It had no windows and a large mural of people working in a lavishly green-painted garden.

Jack peered around the corner, saw the way was clear, and ushered the group onward. They worked their way toward the front of the building, the frigid wind causing Jack’s eyes to tear up.

A zombie came ambling down the street from the main road that ran adjacent to the apartment buildings. Everyone froze, and Jack knew they were all thinking the same thing-please let it be alone.

The zombie saw them and picked up its slow pace, shuffling a bit faster. Jack grimaced at the sight, the thing’s jaw distended, hanging low from its face like a huge rubber band. The fingers on its left hand were gnarled stumps of flesh.

“Let it get closer, then take it out,” Jack told Zaun.

When the bot-controlled thing came within a few feet, Zaun quickly and quietly, sliced off its head. With no other undead showing up, they moved on.

At the street’s corner, Jack saw they were now on 4th Avenue. He looked up and down the street and saw no sign of any undead, only numerous vehicles either parked along the curb or stopped in traffic. If people had escaped the city, he imagined many took mass transit, hoping to avoid the overcrowded roadways.

Jack and the others ran to the building’s entrance, only to find its metal gate was down too. With no other options, they ran across the street to the closest apartment building.

The entire row of houses looked decrepit, with exteriors appearing as if they hadn’t been painted since the 1970’s. Security bars covered almost every first floor apartment. Jack thought it a shame that people couldn’t live in a house and look out a window without feeling as if they themselves were locked away, but for now, he was glad to see the steel bars.

He pushed open the badly scuffed front door, the glass having been replaced by non-transparent Plexiglas. Inside, were a small foyer and another door about ten feet away. It was covered in wire mesh; breaking in would be extremely difficult. Jack tried the door, finding it locked. Along the wall were six mailboxes, indicating the building held six apartments, most likely two on each floor. He began kicking at the door, taking turns with the others, surprised at how sturdy the thing was.

“Cover your ears,” he warned, then readied his shotgun and blasted the lock apart. The noise was deafening in the small room, leaving a slight ringing in his ears. With nothing holding the door closed, Jack easily pushed it open. He cocked the shotgun, and entered the hallway.

“Hey,” Zaun said, holding up a piece of mail. “We’re in Brooklyn.”

The building’s interior wasn’t any better than the exterior. The air was stale, with a mixture of rot and sewage. The walls were filthy, the color of a smoker’s tobacco-stained teeth, and marked up. The black and white patterned linoleum tiles were cracked and worn, revealing the dullness of the wooden floor beneath. An overhead light was on, indicating the electricity was still flowing.

“Let’s clear the building,” Jack said. “It’s only three floors, two apartments per level. Shouldn’t take us long, then we can get some rest.”

The first apartment, 1F, was on the left. Jack tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. A single lock was all that kept the place secured. Most doors in the city had two locks, one on the doorknob part of the door, the other about a foot above it, usually a bolt-action of some kind. He stepped back and gave it a good kick. The door flew open, colliding into something solid, followed by a crash as if someone had fallen.

Pushing the door open all the way, Jack saw what had made the crashing sound. What had once been an elderly woman-now a member of the undead-lay on the floor, attempting to get up. Its arms were covered with open sores. She was still wearing her glasses, but the knock she had taken had knocked them askew as they rested crookedly on her face. The air was putrid, a mixture of mold and rot. Not wanting to waste a bullet, Jack asked Zaun to take care of it.

Zaun stepped forward and put his sword through the zombie’s left eye and into its brain.

Jack and Maria went in and checked the place out while Zaun stood guard at the door.

In the bedroom lay the corpse of an elderly man, his flesh almost completely eaten away, leaving mostly grizzled bone and bloodied clothing.

There were no other dead or undead bodies in the apartment and not much in the way of supplies, at least not anything worth taking.

They moved on to apartment 1R, finding the door unlocked and no one inside, alive or dead. Clothing drawers were left open in the bedrooms. The cupboards were open and bare; toiletries were missing too. It appeared whoever had lived there had left in a hurry. All in all, the place was clean and seemed like a good place to make camp, but the group agreed that living on a higher floor was safer.

Next, they made their way up the creaky stairs, and with each step, the odor of rotting meat grew stronger. As Jack broached the landing, he saw a dead man’s body, wearing only underwear, lying in front of apartment 2R. Its left arm was stripped of flesh, leaving only bone and a few stringy tendons. The legs were missing chunks of meat in various places, as if the zombie hadn’t been able to find the right spot to begin chowing down until it got to the arm.

Jack walked around the body and saw that it had no face, appearing to have been blown off, the nearby wall splattered with gore. He stepped over the corpse and entered the apartment.

“Gross, man,” Zaun said.

The place was filthy and stunk of dead animal. Litter boxes with more shit than sand in them lay in the hallway and in the bathroom. Newspapers and magazines lay everywhere, as if the man had been a collector-no, a hoarder. As they went through the place, Jack heard gasps and other sounds of displeasure from the others. No one wanted to remain in the apartment any longer and the group quickly left to check on the apartment across the hall.

2F was void of life. The place was somewhat clean, the beds made, kitchen garbage empty. There was a television, a couch, a bookcase filled with hardcovers and paperbacks, mostly appearing to be romance in nature. Jack checked the bathroom, finding a small shower radio. Overall, the place was decent, a good spot to set up camp, but first they had to check out the rest of the building. They left the apartment and headed to the third floor.

Upon reaching the top of the staircase, Jack heard the eerily familiar sound of fingernails on wood coming from behind 3R’s door. Images of his wife clawing at the bedroom door sprung into his mind.

Approaching the door, the scratching grew louder and Jack knew there was some thing on the other side. He tried the doorknob and found that it turned. He called Zaun over and together on the count of three, they rammed the door. The zombie fell back and landed on the floor. It was naked, bald on top with long dark, straw-like hair, and a large, bulbous nose. Zaun stepped up and put his sword into the thing’s head.

From inside, Jack heard the sound of chains rattling. He stepped passed Zaun. The sharp scent of pine filled his nose and he saw numerous green air-fresheners in the shape of Christmas trees hanging on the walls.

As the group moved forward, they came upon another dead body laying chest down, head to the side. It was female with long blonde hair, appearing to have been no older than eighteen. She was naked except for a pair of handcuffs on her outstretched wrists. A black tribal tattoo of the sun took up the area of skin just above her ass crack. All along the body’s arms and legs were small cuts, and what appeared to be burn marks, possibly made by cigarettes and a curling iron.

The rattling of chains hadn’t let up. Jack and the others moved forward, nearing the source of the sound. Coming upon a room on his left, Jack looked in to discover a bathroom where an undead female sat handcuffed to a radiator. Upon seeing Jack, the undead thing reached out for him, but the chains kept her in check. She had cuts and burn marks along her arms, legs and face, some oozing yellow puss. Her eyes were milky white, and her mouth opened and closed, biting at the air. She had long, bleached-blonde hair and was wearing a red satin bra with matching garter and panties. She looked to have been around the same age as the other dead female.

“Dude,” Zaun said.

“Guy must’ve kidnapped her. The girl in the hallway too. Abused the hell out of them.”

“Sick bastard,” Maria spat.

The zombie kept reaching for them, its lips pulled back, jaw opening and closing.

“I got it,” Zaun said.

“No,” Maria said, holding out her arm. “I want this one.”

Zaun looked at Maria as if she were crazy.

“Give her your sword,” Jack said.

Zaun removed the weapon and handed it to Maria. “Use the eye socket; blade goes in easiest that way. ”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” Maria assured him.

Jack and Zaun left the bathroom, leaving Maria to it. For some reason, she wanted to kill it and Jack wasn’t about to stop her or ask why. As they moved into the living room, he heard Maria grunt and could only imagine the blade sinking into the undead girl’s brain.

Maria exited the bathroom, and gave Zaun his weapon back.

“You cleaned the blade,” he said, surprised.

“I always return what I borrow in the condition it was given.”

They combed through the apartment, finding pornographic magazines, dildos in all varieties, whips and bondage equipment in the closet of the bedroom, and boxes upon boxes of DVDs and video cassette tapes, all with female names and dates on them. Jack found some as old as 1986. The sick fuck had been raping and torturing women for a very long time. No one wanted to see what was on the things; the guy was dead, the law could do nothing anymore. Once they got to a safe place, they could report the findings.

“I’m not staying here,” Maria said when they met up in the living room.

Jack nodded.

“This place is evil,” Zaun said. “Creep’s me the hell out.”

They left the apartment and went over to 3F. A thin metal ladder leading to the roof, stood in a small alcove to the left of the apartment. The apartment’s red door looked brand new, not a mark on it. Jack tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Three Mul-T-Lock locks took up the space above the handle. Running his fingers over the door, Jack felt cold steel, unlike the other apartments’ doors that were wood. He knocked, feeling the solidness of the steel, like banging on the vault at a bank.

“We aren’t getting in there,” he said.

“Wonder what’s inside,” Zaun said. “Why the security?” He kicked the door a few times, then shook his head. “Forget it.”

“So,” Jack said, “2F it is.”