Z-Risen: Outbreak

Fight and Flight

19:45 hours approximate

Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA — Roz’s Roof

Supplies

My dad was a big guy who didn’t talk much. He was in the Army and told me that the military wasn’t the best place for a kid like me. He said I’d be better suited for a blue-collar job like construction or sanitation where I didn’t have someone constantly telling me when to wipe my ass. I said that would be funny if I was in sanitation. He smacked me upside the head.

Why didn’t I listen to him? He was a goddamn genius.

Don’t get me wrong, I got nothing against blue-collar workers or the job I ended up with in the Navy. Someone’s gotta keep the fires on a ship lit. Gotta keep that engine turning. I just wanted to do something different, like get into journalism, but that required money. I joined the Navy so I could see the world, fuck a lot of girls, and then have my college paid for.

I got one of those wishes.

One wish I didn’t make was for my very own Marine Sergeant Joel “Cruze” Kelly. One night I asked Joel what the “Cruze” was all about. He smiled and deflected the question. Jerk. I kept bugging him about it, because what the hell else did we have to talk about? I asked if it was some kind of Marine secret handshake. After a few minutes of my good-natured ribbing, he finally told me it was something his Mom had called him as a kid and it just stuck around. I didn’t bother him about it after that.

My own mother didn’t have an opinion either way about me joining up. On one hand, I’m sure she didn’t want her youngest son leaving the house. On the other hand, it was probably a relief. My three older bothers weren’t amounting to much and continued to mooch off our folks while I had dreams of going to college. Money I wasn’t going to make working at Burger King.

I was going to join the Army, like Dad, but then I watched some videos of boot camp and decided a ship would be a much more interesting place to hang out instead of in the sand while some asshole shot at me.

Joel did not have a similar story. His dad was in the Marines, and his dad’s dad was in the Corps, so that meant that Joel Kelly was destined to hold an assault rifle and shoot at people. Hoo-ah — oh yeah, they don’t say that in the Marines anymore. If Joel reminded me of that one more time I was going to strangle him with his own gun strap.

Roz didn’t tell us much more of her story but she listened to us talk about our pasts and asked questions when it seemed like there was a break in the flow. She said it would be a way for all of us to break the ice and get to know each other. Now that we had a couple of kids with us, I guess it made sense.

I know it sounds like I’m planning for the future, but I’m not really. When you get right down to it, our life expectancy is next to nil. When you really think about what we are facing, you’ll understand that it’s not a good idea to make long term plans.

Especially now.

Especially. Now!

15:45 hours approximate

Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA — Roz’s Place

Joel snoozed in my chair for an hour. I took the time to eat and drink as much as my gut could handle.

It was glorious.

Roz was busy pacing the living room. She walked to the front door and then back to the windows that faced the yard. I took the opportunity to check out her ass in a pair of grey sweat pants that seemed molded to her body. I’m glad she didn’t catch me. I’m pretty sure she’d have no issue with sticking her shotgun up my ass. Roz peeked out every few minutes. After a while she must have made up her mind to do whatever she needed to do, because she woke Joel up and asked for cover.

Joel popped up like a Marine Jack-in-the-Box, snapped up his assault rifle, and did a quick ammo check. He nodded at Roz and followed her to the door.

“What’s she doing?” I asked Joel.

“Her father.”

“Oh,” I said, and lost whatever little bit of a good mood I’d had a few minutes ago. No kid should have to bury their own parent.

“Should I help?”

“I don’t think so. She looks determined to do it herself. Why don’t you keep watch out the back.”

Roz went into the open garage and dragged out an old carpet. She took the piece to her Dad’s body and rolled him onto it. Smart. That way she could drag him easier, and it also created a sort of burial cover.

I went to the back of the house and peeked through a window. This was Roz’s room and we’d been forbidden from entering it. I had a feeling she wouldn’t mind since we were protecting her.

She wasn’t the neatest girl. There were clothes in piles all around the room. Shirts and dresses hung from a homemade wire rack that ran the length of the room. Dresses? That was the last thing I expected to see Roz in. After a few minutes it hit me. What else was she supposed to do with her clothes? There sure as hell wasn’t any way to wash them in our new world.

The back room’s windows were boarded up but a couple of spy holes offered me a limited view of the world outside the house. Dried up shrubs, a road littered with discarded crap. Broken furniture and empty suitcases. Someone’s sports jacket baked in the sun next to a pair of white broken white sunglasses. The only things missing were a few shamblers.

In salute to the dead world I lifted a plastic wrapper, tore it open, and munched on a protein bar. Then I sipped a bottle of water. The only thing that would make this better was an ice-cold beer, but the lone brew we’d saved from our beer-run a few days ago was probably in the coffers of whoever the fuck ransacked our place.

It was early but already hot inside the little brick house. It may be seventy five at the hottest out there, but once the place gets warm it stays that way.

Sound to the west. I was on the east-facing side of the house and couldn’t see a damn thing until the helicopter thundered overhead. It hovered for a few seconds over a building and then passed over the house. Did they see Roz? Did she signal to them? Were they going to come back and rescue us?

Over a week in this city and I was sick of being cut off. I was sick of living day to day, meal to meal. I wanted out of San Diego and I wanted to know, more than anything, what in the hell was happening in the good ol’ U S of A, because the way we were living could not be the new normal.

I pulled my handgun before I’d even had the chance to think about it. If I could just signal the chopper

I popped the magazine out of habit and checked the load. Full. I lined it up and then fumble fingered the mag. It hit the ground and bounced under Roz’s bed. I followed it and dropped to all fours to get it. I got a handful of panties and stockings and stared at them dumbly. I bet Roz would rock this stuff.

I carefully put the naughty clothes back, picked up the heavy magazine, and slammed it home.

The sound of the chopper was long gone. I stared up but they didn’t materialize again. Then I looked down.

“Oh. Fuck. Me.” I holstered my pistol.

A horde was headed our way. I don’t mean ten Z’s or fifty of the dead fuckers. It was even worse than the day we almost got stuck in Ty’s apartment when Joel’s little fuck up seemed to bring the whole city our way. Only speed and luck had saved our ass that time.

There had to be several thousands. Thousands!

“Uhh,” I said. Real smart, right?

I was so scared I considered just crapping my pants. Then Joel’s voice in my head told me to man up or he’d find an adult diaper and make me wear it. Here we were in a nice safe house where we could silently wait for them to pass us by, and Roz was out on the front yard. There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation, no thought of leaving her out there.

I stared and tried to get a count but after a few seconds I dashed out of the room.

I ran at a gimpy pace on my twisted ankle through the hallway. I passed a room where the two kids, Christy and Craig, slept. I made it to the living room and almost crashed into the recliner I’d called home the night before.

“Joel!” I called as loudly as I dared.

He had the door propped open, one foot inside the threshold, the other on the porch. The assault rifle was slung across his chest with his finger poised right over the trigger. Joel wore his New York Fire Department ball cap backwards and the pilfered shades over his eyes.

“Joel!” I yelled louder this time.

“What? I’m keeping watch. Why aren’t you doing the same?”

“Dude. We got trouble. Big fucking trouble.”

“What?”

“Come look.”

“I can’t leave Roz out there.”

“Roz. Shit.”

I didn’t have to think about the stupid shit I was about to do.

I tried to brush past Joel but he stopped me with a meaty Marine hand. I towered over him and could have knocked him aside, but for all the shit we give each other, I’d never had a better friend.

“What’re you doing?”

“It’s bad. There’re so many of them I couldn’t count the first wave. It’s an army and they’re all headed in this direction. We need to get Roz back in here now.” I looked around the yard. “Where is she?”

“In the garage. Please tell me you’re exaggerating a little bit.”

“I wish, man. I wish. Did she flag down that chopper?”

“They took off when they saw her.”

“Damn.”

“You go get her. I’ll cover. No, wait. You cover and I’ll go. You and your busted leg.”

“You’re ten times the shot I am. I’ll go.” And this time I did take his hand, but with more of a handshake grip as I pushed it down. “It’s the right thing to do. Stay here and pop anything that gets close.”

Joel nodded and clapped me on the shoulder.

I did the stupid thing and took a step outside the house.

16:05 hours approximate

Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA — Roz’s Place

The garage wasn’t attached to the house. If it was, this might have had a different ending. As it was, the little building was only thirty or forty feet away from the door and only a few feet from the side of the house, but it might as well have been a mile with me naked and armed with a toothbrush.

I swear I could hear them already, even though they had to be at least a hundred yards away.

The morning sun was nice and high in the sky. I shaded my eyes and crunched across the short concrete patio, down the couple of stairs, and onto the sidewalk. Dead grass in all of its yellow and brown glory spread around me. A lone water sprinkler sat next to a dried blood stain which roughly resembled the shape of a man.

The corner of the house erupted in noise. The moans of the dead had reached us much quicker than I thought and that meant one thing.

Shufflers.

A group came into view from the side of the garage. They were a motley assortment of dead, cobbled together by their need for fresh meat. Men and women, boys and girls. The virus had taken everyone in its path.

“Ugly bastards, all of you!” I yelled.

I hoped Roz heard me. I was already headed toward her, so I drew and shot on the move. I missed. My second shot missed as well, so I stopped, took a breath, aimed down the sights and then dropped the Z that was about to enter the garage.

I spun but more of the Z’s were rounding the other side of the house. I was trapped.

Hobbling on my bum ankle, I got to the walkway. Joel swung into his super Marine mode by moving onto the porch and dropping the first of the dead. His second shot spun another one around but it completed a halfway decent dance move by turning three hundred and sixty degrees. Joel hit it between the eyes with the second shot.

Another pair right behind the first. I gasped and took a shot. Missed. God I sucked. My hand was shaking like a leaf but I didn’t stop firing.

A couple of former soldiers, from the look of their rotted and hanging uniforms. I took out one and hit the other in the chest. He dropped but got a hand out and hauled himself to his knees. I kicked the rotter in the face and dove into the garage.

The bodies from the night before lay in a pile. Roz had executed one at point blank range and most of his head was just gone. Joel’s shots had been neater but the bodies were still that—bodies.

“Oh no! Oh shit!” Roz yelled.

“Can you close the door?”

“Shit!” She jumped and grabbed a rope and yanked but the door didn’t budge.

The former soldier I’d kicked in the face snarled around a dislocated jaw and came at us. I kicked him in the gut before he could reach the boundary of the garage. He was dead, so he needed to stay on his side of the world. I used the best persuader at my disposal by lifting the hand cannon and firing into his face.

I’d made good use of the gun, but in the heat of the battle I’d lost count of my shots. I went over the action in my head and thought I might have seven or eight rounds left.

Roz grabbed at the door again. I got a hold on the rope with her, this time, and we both yanked. The garage door came loose and slid down with a creak.

The old and heavy slab of wood swung down and dropped into place. It clicked when it was flush with the ground, so I tested the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. At least we were safe for now, even if we were trapped in a giant box with no light and four or five bodies. My skin crawled, and that was before I got the first whiff of their bloating corpses.

More gunshots and then they went silent.

“What happened?” Roz asked. She stood close to me, so I reached out to touch her in the dark, just to reassure myself that she was really there. Of all the close calls, this one had been the worst. I was left gasping for air.

“I slipped.”

“No, what happened just now?”

“I was in the back of the house keeping an eye out when I saw them coming. About a thousand of those things. I ran out to warn you.”

“So you went out on a rescue mission? Are you stupid?”

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t ask you to save me. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, and those things would have devoured you. Where would that leave me and Joel? Inside the house, filled with guilt and your food. That’s where.”

“Chivalry’s dead, man.”

“But being a decent human being isn’t. Not yet. Not with Joel Kelly and Jackson Fucking Creed on the case.”

She let out a light giggle, and that was enough for me.

Roz touched my hand, took it in hers and squeezed. I squeezed back. We stood in the dark and didn’t speak for long moments. My breathing was still harsh and came in ragged gasps.

Thumping on the door that grew in intensity. I’d seen this before, the second or third day in the city. The dead had trapped a poor soul in a hotel room and battered at the door and window until both broke. The screams came moments later.

Joel and I had been hidden in a convenience store across the street. The door had probably been busted off the hinges by looters. We crouched and stared at each other with wide, wild eyes. I was scared to death that at any moment one of those things was going to get wind of us.

We managed to keep quiet for a couple of hours while the dead feasted on their prize and then eventually wandered off. Funny how hiding makes you patient. A week ago I would have been going stir crazy from having nothing to do but wait. Back then I had my games and cell phone. I even had a crappy tablet I’d won in a game of spades. I could hang out and read Facebook or surf the web. Being stuck in that store while we contemplated life and death made me shut the fuck up with a quickness.

Roz and I only had one choice and it was in my right hand. Seven or eight shots were enough. I only needed two.

“We’re fucked,” Roz said.

“No back door?”

“Nope. Dad had this thing delivered and mounted on a concrete slab fifteen years ago. It’s not even a real garage. It’s just a bunch of wooden siding held together with bubblegum.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think making a run for it is an option, yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean no. Think we can kick out a wall?”

“Probably… but the noise.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Roz folded herself into me and stood there for a minute. She touched my chest and then felt to my shoulder, then down my arm. Shit, was I about to go out with a smile?

Her hand stopped at the handgun.

“How many rounds do you have?”

“Enough.”

“Okay, but last resort. If they get in here, do it. Don’t tell me it’s coming; just do it so I’m not scared out of my pants.”

“I bet you look good out of your pants,” I said.

“Guess you’ll never know in the dark, huh? Maybe we should be quiet. See? I’m coming up with a plan.”

“That’s the plan?”

“Yeah. If we’re quiet, maybe they’ll get bored and leave.”

I didn’t see that happening but I also didn’t see anything wrong with holding Roz against me for a little bit longer. It’d been a long time since I held a woman and if I was about to die, I could think of worse ways to go.

Our respite was short lived. The pounding on the door picked up with gusto. I hugged Roz tighter and closed my eyes.

*mumble mumble.*

“What?” I asked the darkness.

“Someone’s yelling.”

“Joel. Who else would start making a fuss? Think he’s going to go into Marine mode and lead them away?”

“I hope not,” Roz said.

“Me too.” I nodded in the dark. I liked Joel right where he was — alive and ready to carry on the fight.

More mumbled shouts.

The banging on the door increased and I was sure they were about to break in. The door flexed, so we took up station in front of it and pushed back. It might not stop them for long, but it was better than giving up.

More mumbles but they were overridden by the moans outside. So many voices and many of them just making guttural sounds. It didn’t make any sense. I did, however, make out was the clicks and scrabbling of at least one shuffler.

Something thumped against the garage so hard I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’d like to say we were brave, but I was just about to go find a corner to shit in. If I didn’t, my pants were going to be filled, and I didn’t want my Mom’s worst fear to be realized. She would have to bury my corpse in my dirty skivvies.

Something else thumped. I looked up because the sound had come from there. Jesus, did a shuffler make it that high? I’d seen them leap, but not that damn far. The roof was flat, but it was still a good twelve feet high.

Something smashed into the roof and this time I aimed the gun. More mumbled shouts.

“What in the hell!” Roz yelled. She reached for me and found my hand. I gave hers a squeeze and tried to act brave which was really hard to do in the pitch black.

Light crept under the garage door every time one of the Z’s hit it. As the beating grew faster it looked like we were standing under a strobe light.

The door buckled and almost went down. A spring on one side gave way with a twanging pop. The Z’s beat at the door even harder. I pushed back, but one hard crash almost sent me to my knees. That would be one of the shufflers.

More noise from the roof.

I tugged Roz to me. I embraced her and put her head against my chest. It wasn’t really a romantic way to go out and not something I’d ever plan. If this was some Romeo and Juliet fucked up zombie movie, that’s how it would end. I guess I’d just put the gun to her head and pull the trigger, then, if it didn’t pass through her head and into my chest, I’d put it under my chin. The dead could feast on my corpse.

Still, I’d love to kill one more shuffler before I went down. I hated those things.

Something crashed into the roof. Something heavy enough to shake the entire building—speaking of shufflers.

Another crash and light poured in from above.

“Get your asses up here!” Joel yelled.

Something sharp smashed into the roof and tore a hole the size of a softball. He was using an entrenching tool to rip the roof an asshole. Son of a bitch, Joel. Son of a bitch.

The dead renewed their efforts to get us. The thumping was bad enough, but now Joel was offering us a way out — if there was time.

“Can you find some way to get us up there?” I asked Roz.

“What about the door?”

“Just make us a ladder. I’ll hold the door.” I smiled in the dim light because I knew it was probably a death sentence.

She moved away and used the light from above to gather up a few items. Now that I could see, it was clear that the garage was a veritable death trap. Tools lay on benches, and there was a chainsaw that I briefly thought of trying to use if the Z’s got through the door.

A couple of mowers lay in disrepair with wheels and machine parts in buckets and bins. There was enough furniture in the room to fill a two-story house, most of it stacked against the wall.

Joel ripped up a chunk of roof and tossed it aside. He looked in and I waved, but with the dust and dark I doubted he could make us out.

“I can see you!” Roz yelled.

She worked at a pile of old wooden chairs, tossing them under the hole Joel was creating. He dug in with the small shovel and then ripped up yet another piece along with a huge pile of pink insulation.

The dead grew furious, judging by the way they pounded at the door. I pushed back, and just when I thought they were going to give it a rest, something hit the door hard enough to knock off another spring.

“Shufflers. We need to hurry!” Joel yelled.

“Then hurry.”

“Get your ass up here and dig. I bet they’ll let you through.”

I flipped him the bird.

The door buckled and almost caved in. I put my back into it but there were fingers wriggling between the frame and the broken door. A hand poked through, so I dragged the gun up, estimated where the head was attached to the body, and put a round through the thick wood. The hand stopped feeling around and went limp.

“Almost got it!” Joel yelled and ripped up another piece of roof.

Roz climbed up onto the contraption she’d built and stood on unsteady legs as the chair wobbled, balanced on two other chairs. Was I supposed to get out on that thing?

She reached up; Joel Kelly caught her hands and pulled. Another pair of hands came down and grabbed her forearms and then she was yanked up. Craig or Christy, those two wonderful kids, had decided to help. I grinned.

My gratitude was short lived.

My skin crawled and my belly clenched when the door gave way. I pulled away and just avoided being crushed under it and about a hundred stinking dead people that wanted to eat me.

Do you know the dread? Can you imagine what their reek is like? It’s hell, pure hell and those teeth… Most still have teeth, but others have snapped and cracked chompers that are the nastiest things you have ever seen outside of a pit of bloated corpses rotting in the sun.

I made it two steps, thought I felt breath on the back of my neck, then spun and shot a shuffler in mid-leap. She had both hands up, her mouth a furious grin of madness. I swear she was gibbering. A couple of fingers had been chewed to the knuckle and that was probably what saved me, because her nasty hand wasn’t able to keep a grip on my arm.

My first shot missed. I took a few steps back as every fiber of my body screamed that I needed to run. I fired one more time and, this time, did some damage. The bullet ripped through her body laterally but didn’t stop the damned woman.

I reached the chairs and crawled up the first level while the garage filled. I had only seconds and one mistake would be the end of me. I’d be pulled into the mass so fast that there wouldn’t be time to blow my brains out.

I shot a Z in the chest because I didn’t have time to get a good bead. The bullet punched into flesh and knocked it aside.

Up to the second set of chairs and then I could almost reach the roof.

The chair rocked under my feet but I dared not look down. If I did, I was sure one of them would have me.

I leapt up and the chair wobbled to the side.

Fingertips. That’s all I managed to hold on with.

Joel grabbed an arm and pulled. Craig grabbed my other arm, and if not for them, I would have gone back down into the mass.

Another shuffler smashed into the chairs and I was left dangling like a side of beef.

“Fucking get me out of here!” I yelled in an unintended falsetto.

“We’re trying, you fucking ox,” Joel said as he strained.

Joel’s face was full of worry, visible even behind his thick shades. He gasped for breath and threw his body into it. I rose into the air a few precious inches and managed to get a grip on the edge of the hole.

I pulled my legs up close to my body as something else grabbed at my boots. A hand got a hold of my pant leg and I was stretched between my rescuers and my would-be consumers.

I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.

Roz leaned over and grabbed a wrist. Together, the three of them pulled me up. I kicked down and dislodged the hand on my pant leg. Another kick caught the shuffler in the head.

It gibbered as it fell away. The bitch’s head was covered in wisps of hair and her eyes were sunken in like the orbs of a skeleton. Blood coated her body, but most of it was by her mouth. She struck the mob below and used them as a trampoline.

I was so sickened that I sat down with my feet dangling inside the garage, took aim, and shot her in the head. Her mouth moved and something like words came out, but they didn’t mean anything. She stopped making noises when my round split her skull. Take that, you sick fuck.

“Thank you, Joel. Thank you for saving us.” I reached out to offer a manly shake-thing that turned into a half-hearted hug until he pushed my hands away.

“You’d do the same for me,” Joel said. “You might wish you were still down there.”

“Why in the hell would I wish that?” I asked but trailed off when I saw the new horizon.

I rose on shaking legs, my body exhausted as adrenaline faded away. The sun was an unholy blaze that illuminated a fresh nightmare. All around the house there were the dead. Nothing but the dead. On and on the horde stretched, and more were on the way.

We were trapped in the middle of Undeadville with no escape.

“What do we do now?”

Joel shrugged and picked up his AR-15 and popped the magazine. He gave it a quick shake and slid it back home with a click.

“I guess we wait and hope they go away.”

Below, the front door to the house gave in with a crash. Great; that was the second fortress we’d lost in two days.

Craig and Roz sat to the side to watch the Z’s gather. Roz sat down and touched her fingers to her forehead, then down to her chest, and then side to side while muttering something about el Diablo.

“How’d you even get up here?”

Joel pointed at his entrenching tool and then looked at the house. They’d come out through the roof, jumped the couple of feet that separated the buildings and then gotten us out.

Christy popped out of the hole in the house a few seconds later and slung a couple of backpacks onto the roof. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up. Craig made the three-foot leap onto the home and helped her cross.

They both joined us and collapsed in a heap.

“I got what I could but they broke into the house.”

“All that food and water,” Roz said and shook her head.

“At least we’re still alive.” I tried to sound cheerful but it was cut off by the moans of the dead. A shuffler threw itself at the side of the garage and fell into the crowd below.

“Yeah. This is terrific.” Joel said.

Joel had managed to make it out of the house with his assault rifle. He sat with it cradled in his arms.

The ocean of the dead stretched around us until they covered the ground in every direction.

This is Machinist Mate First Class Jackson Creed and I am still alive. For now…