K. T. Swartz Read online

  It punctured a zombie in the chest. Shuddered but kept moving. She fired again. The arrow thumped lightly in his body. But he didn’t stop. The ammonia didn’t do a thing, and without blood pumping the poison through his body, he wouldn’t be affected by it. She fired off another arrow, planting one in his skull. She drew her machete and squirt gun. Had to smile with the bright green toy in her hand. How long had it been since she’d done battle with her friends in the Summer, a cheap water pistol in each hand? Now she used them as real weapons. How ironic.

  She slashed the machete across another zombie’s stomach, opening him up lengthwise. She backed up, staying just out of reach as he came on, his clear eyes only on her. Behind him a third zombie fell off the concrete platform and onto the Center’s gravel drive. She squeezed the squirt gun’s trigger. Ammonia splashed across the open, gaping wound. The zombie jerked. She adjusted her aim; ammonia washed his face. Tears leaked from his eyes. His shuddering groan skipped a beat. She squirted him in the nose.

  He stopped. The one behind him caught up. Ammonia splattered his face. This time no tears fell from blind eyes, and while his moan still touched her ears, the sound grew soft. Faded out completely. Both zombies stood still, with the stink of ammonia floating around them. She squirted one in the face. He didn’t move. Neither did the other. With her fireman’s ax, she split open both skulls and the smell of ammonia faded as brackish blood pooled around the zombies’ exposed brains. She looked around. But she was alone. She took out her notebook and jotted down some notes, specifically that the smell seemed to hold the major stopping power, because without blood flowing, simply injecting ammonia into their bodies was useless.

  She had only one thing left to try, and for that she needed her test subjects in a tightly confined space or at least bunched up close. Well, if she could get those zombies in the fenced-in yard together, and that would certainly do it. She circled the building. Slowly. One eye on the yard, the other on the grounds, she moved around the sprawling one story complex to the jail’s main entrance. Nothing loitered in the lobby, at least nothing she could see through the glass. Those five zombies in the yard slipped their rotted, bone-thin fingers through the chain-links. Moans punctuated the air, almost harmonized into a Gregorian-like chant. She continued her circuit around the complex, to her truck. Drove back to the yard.

  The zombies clung to the fence like obsessed fans. She unbuckled her test bomb from the passenger’s seat. Simply designed, it encompassed two chambers for the ammonia and a time release mechanism, all of which was secured inside a metal bucket punched full of holes. She set it in front of the fence and backed away. Took the trigger out of her pocket. The zombies moaned, pushing against the fence; it rattled and shook. She pushed the button. Ammonia gas leaked from the bucket. She back-pedaled out of reach of the swiftly overwhelming smell. Her eyes watered; she sniffed as her nose ran and inhaled a lungful of fumes. Ragged coughs tore at her throat, until they were the only sounds she heard. Everything else fell silent.

  She lifted her head, eyes wide. Five inmates stood like statues, their fingers still wrapped around the chain-links. Bitter fumes leaked from the bucket, hanging thick around the zombies. But the bomb worked. She couldn’t do anything but stare. After all this time – after so much loneliness and the inescapable realization that her life would never be more than this – here was just a little bit of hope in the form of a rather commonplace cleaning agent.

  But why did it work?

  ‘That is simple. Ammonia occurs naturally in putrefaction, in the decaying of nitrogenous bodies. Technically, I am only reminding the undead body what it should be doing – which is dying. Maybe now I can really cause some damage.’

  • excerpt from October 10 entry

  The Survivors

  At the end of the Out-Break’s first year, there were an estimated 50 million survivors worldwide. Most subscribed to the idea that if they kept on the move, they would eventually outrun the dead. The colder regions of the planet were the safest. Of course, none knew that until winter’s first plunge below freezing. Mass migrations began that following Spring, when the dangers began anew. The survivors left the areas they had sheltered in during winter and found the surviving undead waiting for them. While winter froze them, it also preserved them. Ravenous after the long months, the dead were unrelenting.

  At the end of the Out-Break’s second year, the number of survivors had dropped to 2 million worldwide. The number of undead saw a sudden surge in number. Where once the major cities were hazardous but passable, they became beacons for the dead, as the last places to still support the living. In response, more people migrated north, risking their lives by venturing into territory they didn’t know. The reckless were picked off quickly, but the cautious survived for a little while longer. At the trip’s end they found others in those frigid lands, where the snow swallowed their homes for months at a time, where food was scarce because of overhunting and too few months to plant a harvest.

  At the end of the Out-Break’s third year, only 50 thousand worldwide remained. They were a broken people that survived through strength and perseverance, but with no end in sight. They saw only its effects on their loved ones, their friends, and their enemies. Instead of happiness, they carried guns. Instead of hope, they carried shovels to bury the dead. The cycle went on and on, year after year.

  The number of survivors eventually held steady at twenty thousand, with over two-thirds in Canada and Russia. The continents were empty except for the dead and a few stubborn souls, including May Morris-Reid. That sixth year was when she arrived in Danville, where she started the same preparations she and Jeremy began during the Out-Break’s first year. Through research and eye-witness accounts, it is estimated that in their four years together they wiped out almost forty thousand undead, in over a dozen cities in the heart of Kentucky.

  After Jeremy’s death, May carried on alone, struggling to keep up the same strategies as before, and her impact on the human race would soon become legendary, because humans are at their core fighters and survivors. They transform the world around them to suit their needs. They are not known for their cowardice, even against insurmountable odds. Hope drives them to achieve greatness. And greatness cannot be buried under snow dunes. All it takes is one whisper of freedom, of success, to make captives suddenly hunger for a fight. Just as Michael Torvo, who led a group of twelve north to Canada, eventually found by taking the US-150 bypass into Danville, while the winter snow still softened their steps.

  Danville:

  Michael Torvo came from Atlanta, Georgia. An ex-Marine, he was a technical analyst for a company called Bio-Analytics. He was not a native born Southerner and had the accent to prove it. He and his family had originally lived in Maine until he was offered the senior Tech A position for Bio-Analytics corporate office in Atlanta. With little reason to stay in New England, he moved his family south, to a land of peaches and Spanish moss. They’d only been there three years before the Out-Break occurred. When the international airport was quarantined, he uprooted his family to a friend’s farm only ten minutes from the city limits. But the distance wasn’t enough to spare them from the crushing fear that washed over the city when the hospitals became overrun with the shambling dead.

  At first, the Torvos tried to hide, but the 5,268,860 million zombie population made it impossible. They left everything behind and fled to the rural areas of Georgia, where they ran into other survivors. Merging into a single clan, they avoided the major highways and scrounged for food in small towns. But thirty mouths were difficult to feed. The group split up somewhere outside Knoxville, Tennessee. Twelve followed Michael. The other eighteen he hasn’t seen since that day. Over the next few years, Michael did everything he could to keep his people alive. When rumors spread of safety in the White North, he convinced them to make the dangerous 1,039 mile journey to Canada. They stopped only in small cities, stuck to rural highways, and only entered towns in an emergency, such as the one that took them into Danvil
le.

  Headlights flashed in Michael’s rearview mirror yet again. He glanced at them. The camper behind his SUV flashed its lights. Impatient as always. He braked, his foot easing off the pedal when the tires slid slowly across a patch of ice under several inches of snow. The camper backed off his bumper; his son’s head popped up in the rearview mirror.

  “Are they gonna hit us?” Max asked.

  “Not unless someone hits them,” he replied as the vehicle finally skidded to a stop. Beside him, his wife, Marleen managed to pry her nails from the dashboard. She relaxed in her seat. “You’re entirely too calm about this.”

  “As long as we’re not dead, we’re good,” he said and climbed out.

  A large African American man opened the camper door. Tommy leaned out. “Yo, man, I knew we should have stopped in Junction City. We gotta fill up now, or we’re gonna have to push this thing to Canada.”

  Michael looked around. The road was straddled by an All-Mart and a Morrow’s, but no gas station. He looked back at Tommy. “How many more gallons do you think you have?”

  “Not enough to get out of town,” he said.

  Great answer. “All right, uh, let’s hope Danville’s got a gas station close by.”

  He and Tommy climbed back in their vehicles. Max leaned forward. “I’m hungry.”

  “Just wait a little bit, Max,” Marleen said. “There’re some stores around here. Maybe we’ll grab something on our way through.”

  Michael caught her glance. Past experience was enough to make the thought of finding another meal a difficult one. But their supplies were running low. Whether they wanted to or not, they had to stop. Michael pulled the SUV up to the stoplight, eased around a truck and car bumper-to-bumper. He pointed to the right. “Look down that way. See if you can spot a gas station. I’ll check this way. Tommy says he’s about out.”

  Marleen did. Michael squinted against the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the white road. “I don’t see anything. Do you?”

  Marleen shook her head, pulled out their badly folded map. “Well, since we’re heading north, I say we keep going. It looks like South 4 Street may head downtown. We’ll probably find something there.”

  Max threw himself over the center console. His finger narrowly missed Michael’s nose. “I see a Roger’s! They have gas, right?”

  “Yes, they do,” Marleen said, looking where their son pointed. “There it is, Mike. Why don’t we try there first?”

  Michael turned on the blinker. Behind him, Tommy followed in the camper and Arti in the utility truck. Max crawled from one window to the other. “Mom, what’s the Dinner Bell?”

  “It’s a restaurant. They have Southern food there,” she said, glancing up the hill.

  “Oh. Can we eat at Hally’s?” he shouted.

  Marleen wrinkled her nose. “Hon, I’m sure all those hamburgers are expired.”

  “I don’t want canned peas again,” Max grumbled. Michael smiled as Marleen turned in her seat to look at their son. Max folded his arms, gave her his best scowl.

  “Hon, we’ll have to eat whatever we can find, but we’ll try to find something extra special tonight, ok?” she said.

  “Ok,” he said.

  Michael drove on the shoulder, passed the vehicles choking the four-lane road. At the light, he turned, pulled beside one of the pumps. The camper and truck stopped beside him. All twelve occupants climbed out; Michael and his family; Tommy and his girlfriend Cherise and their two kids; Arti and her girlfriend Liz, and Tony, Rob, and Rae. Michael walked up to where they were huddled by their vehicles. Snowflakes drifted by his nose.

  “All right, everybody, you know the drill. Two teams scout out the parking lot and the building’s perimeter while a third retrieves the gasoline,” Michael said. “If need be, we’ll drain these cars out here for gas. Tommy, you, Cherise, and Arti take the parking lot. Liz, you, Tony, Rob, and I’ll check the building’s perimeter. Rae, you and Marleen take the kids and check all these pumps.”

  In silence, everyone pulled out their handguns, split up into their teams. Like a well-oiled machine they set off across the snow. The fresh powder crunched under their shoes. Michael gestured with two fingers, and his partners fell in behind him. No one made a sound, simply followed orders. It had taken months of drilling to turn terrified civilians into a capable militia, but they’d done well – their shots improving, their aim steady. He felt comfortable walking in front of one college student, a hairdresser, and a garbagewoman without feeling like he was about to be shot in the back.

  Liz trotted up beside him. “It’s pretty quiet out here. I don’t see any tracks at all.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” Rob offered. Tony nodded.

  He’d noticed that too. Roger’s seemed oddly deserted. Considering grocery stores were serious draws for the undead, their absence had his finger tapping the trigger.

  Tony whistled suddenly as they walked around the building; he pointed to a dumpster turned on its side. “Look at that.”

  Michael stared. Blood and blown off limbs splattered the interior like a dry coat of paint. Corpses were piled inside and lay scattered around the back parking lot. But the damage to the dumpster, where something had punched dozens of tiny holes through the metal, drew his attention. Waving the others to stand back, he crept closer. Held his gun steady should any of the bodies move. He nudged one of the dead with his toe. Snow shushed, sliding off the corpse. But it wasn’t frozen. The zombie’s body resembled the dumpster, so punched full of holes that severe internal damage had caused it to lose mobility. The bashed-in skull told one hell of a story too.

  Something clinked under his boot. He knelt, dusted snow off a 6 inch nail. He stared at it, at the crushed, blackened gunk frozen to it. His eyes went to the dumpster, to its impression of Swiss cheese.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. Turned back to his partners.

  “What did you find?” Liz asked.

  “Somebody used a nail-bomb to incapacitate them and a blunt instrument to finish the job,” he said.

  Tony stepped closer to Rob, who frowned at him, but Tony didn’t notice, only glanced around, his arms hugging himself tightly. “Do you think they’re still here?”

  Michael tossed the nail away. “Probably not. Nail-bombs are awkward to carry long distances, but considering the snow over the bodies, I’d say this was done awhile ago.”

  “Could be why we haven’t seen any undead around,” Liz commented.

  Michael nodded. “We proceed carefully and cautiously. We don’t know who we could be dealing with.”

  “He could be a loon like that guy outside Nashville,” Rob said, shooting a glare at Tony.

  Tony stiffened, glared right back, but stepped away from the college student.

  “Lower your voice,” Liz hissed. “You want draw attention to yourself?”

  “No, I just don’t want to be spooned,” Rob shot back.

  “Enough,” Michael snapped. “This isn’t the time or the place for this. Keep your mouths shut. We’re moving out.” Rob scowled but stayed silent. Michael headed around the grocery store’s far side. He’d tried to get everyone comfortable with their teammates when he originally selected teams, but some just weren’t complying, were too hung up on their own prejudices to see the danger in them. In moments like these when their lives counted on every eye and every bit of trust in another, they couldn’t afford anything less.

  Tony’s need for reassurance only irritated Rob, who couldn’t see past his own machismo, misguided as it was. As it stood, the more Rob pushed Tony away, the more Tony hovered near him, though he knew Rob didn’t share his sexual orientation. But fear made people do strange things. Liz fell in beside him as he led them to the back door of Roger’s.

  “You really should separate those two,” she whispered.

  “I need everyone here at a hundred percent,” he replied. “Those two need to learn to deal with their differences or their arguments will get us killed.”

&n
bsp; Liz shrugged. “You really think Rob’ll come around? He’s one of the biggest homophobes I’ve ever seen.”

  “He needs to get over that too,” was all he said. He stuck his gun in his belt; knelt to search the door for wires or cords peeking around the frame. But nothing was there. His gun in his hand, he stepped inside. Liz flashed her light around the stockroom. Nothing moved in the shadows, only their breath curled in white puffs through the air. He pushed through the swinging doors and stared. An almost untouched store lay before him. The fruit was rotting on the shelves, the frozen foods long past their expiration dates, but beyond that were the canned goods, the foods with longer expiration dates.

  Tony whistled. “Wow.”

  “Now this is what I’m talking about,” Rob said.

  “Everybody, grab a cart. Pack it full. We’ll probably make several trips,” Michael said. “And don’t get just one thing.”

  They nodded, headed for the front. Michael followed as they swept each aisle, but no zombies lingered in the darkness. This grocery store had been completely swept clean. Liz’s smile was lopsided. “I don’t know whether to jump for joy or be weirded out.”

  Michael had to agree. Such well-wrapped presents didn’t normally fall out of the sky like this, especially after an Out-Break six years old. The unexpected surprise made him itchy, had him looking over his shoulder for ghosts.

  Tommy, Cherise, and Arti met him outside.

  “How’s it looking?” Tommy asked.

  “Clean,” Michael said. “There’s a pile of corpses around back. Looks like they were hit with an explosive.”