Holiday of the Dead (60 page)

Just then I hear a ‘whoop whoop’ noise in the distance that can’t be mistaken; a helicopter. “You hear that?” I ask.

Sgt. Ortiz bolts from her chair and yells at all of us to follow her to the roof. She runs out of the room and down the hallway that leads to the roof hatch. We follow her as quickly as we can. We climb the ladder and open the hatch to the roof. “There!” Sgt. Ortiz points to the helicopter. It's swaying back and forth and I see smoke coming out the back.

“Oh man, they’re fucked,” Mike says. Another larger puff of smoke erupts from the passenger compartment and flames become visible. It auto rotates to the ground about a quarter mile from the rest stop. We watch as it circles around and around, trying to keep some measure of control in its descent. It hits the ground hard, landing on its runners just on our side of the highway, near the edge of the woods fifty yards or so from the rest stop. Two people jump out before the chopper explodes, sending shards of metal and debris everywhere. We duck down behind the parapet wall for cover. The sound of the explosion is almost deafening.

The people who escaped from the chopper are on the ground, not too far from the building. They’re barely moving. “They need our help! I’m going out there!” Sgt. Ortiz snaps.

“Me too,” Jack and Mike say simultaneously. I hesitate for a moment, frozen with fear. I’ve spotted dozens of those things coming out of the tree line – about a hundred yards or so from the downed chopper.

“Holy shit! Look at all of ’em!” Jack yells.

“Downstairs in the office, there’s more guns. Get down there, grab something to fight with and let’s get out to those men before those fuckers do!” Sgt. Ortiz commands.

“Come on man, these guys need our help!” Mike shouts to me as he heads down the ladder.

I slide down the ladder and run to the office. I grab a 12 gauge shotgun, as many shells as I can manage to stick in my pockets and a 9mm pistol from the table. Jack and Mike grab some shotguns and pistols as well. Sgt. Ortiz holsters her pistol, grabs her SAW and leads us to the front door. After she unchains the door, we run as fast as we can toward the crash site and the injured people. It’s an Army chopper; the men who made it out are wearing digital camouflage fatigues. They’re on the ground, blood covering their uniforms. We
bolt into the field as fast as we can, but it’s too late. We hear the men scream as the things reach them first, tearing them to pieces. There’s nothing we can do. Several creatures notice us and start to run toward us.

“Move it! Get your asses back inside!” Jack screams. The four of us turn and run towards the rest stop. Twenty more of the creatures have appeared as if out of nowhere, blocking our retreat. They’re runners, explains how they closed the gap so quickly. Sgt. Ortiz opens fire. She cuts the first few of the things down in mid stride. The chatter of her SAW is deafening enough; the addition of our three shotguns in the mix makes my ears scream. The blasts keeps coming and coming. The creatures in front of us are falling – blood, bone, tissue, and every type of matter possible in the human body are being ripped apart by the hail of bullets and buckshot.

Once the last of the runners are down, we continue back to the building. “They’re down, let’s go!” Sgt. Ortiz yells to us. I’m surprised that I can hear anything at all with the ringing in my ears.

Before we get to the front door of the building several of the runners come around the opposite side of the building and grab Mike who's a few feet behind the rest of us. We hear him scream; all of us turn around at the same time. They have him down on the ground, sharp broken teeth sinking into his limbs and torso. He screams again and again as he lashes out, trying to fight them off.

Jack shoots two of them, but it’s too late to save him. As Mike is being torn apart, I raise my pistol and shoot my friend in the head – his screaming brought to a sudden, brutal stop.

We enter the building and chain the doors behind us, barely making it inside ahead of the creatures. Looking through the glass doors, we see the area is now teeming with them. Some of them are the runners, but many of the ones that move slowly, making their way methodically toward the building, and us. They’re everywhere, the sound of the crash and resulting explosion must have brought them.

I begin to panic. “Those things killed Mike! They’re everywhere! We’re fucked! There’s no way out of here!” My vision flashes white and I feel a white hot sting on the side of my head as Jack slaps me hard across the face. I fall to my knees, stunned and sobbing.

“Get yourself together man! There’s nothing we could have done for him. We have to stay cool!” Jack growls at me. Shocked, but gathering my senses, I rub my throbbing cheek and jaw, stand up and nod silently.

There’s loud banging on the service entrance door in the back. More of the creatures have made their way behind the building. Sgt. Ortiz rushes towards the noise and yells, “Cover the front!” The back door begins to shake and buckle under the onslaught of the creatures.

After reloading, Jack and I look to the front and see twenty or thirty creatures pounding on the safety glass, desperate to claw their way in. Bloody handprints stain the glass. A loud crash signals the demise of the back door. Sgt. Ortiz’s SAW begins to chatter. Another crash and the creatures break the safety glass and start surging into the lobby. Jack and I dive behind the information desks. We raise our shotguns and start shooting. A heady cocktail of rage and terror are burning through my veins; hate for these things, these murderous God damn things. I bellow and scream as the blasts tear apart the rotting corpses.

As I glance at Jack, his shotgun clicks empty. He raises it like a club and runs at the remaining creatures.

“You pus-brained motherfuckers! You want some, come and get it!” Jack screams as he charges them. He hits one in the side of the head, shattering its skull. He continues to wade into them as I fire into the crowd. Still hearing the chatter of the SAW in the back of the building, we continue to fight. One creature manages to get behind Jack and grabs him.

I aim at it and pull the trigger, but instead of a recoil, I hear a dry click. It sinks its teeth into Jack, tearing a chunk of flesh from his arm. Howling, Jack discards the shotgun and lifts the creature off the ground. As it snaps at him, he twists it and slams it head first into the ground with a sickening crunch.

An arm tears away from its socket in his powerful grip and he uses it as a club; adrenaline lending him extra strength. He uses his improvised meat club and beats several others back before he’s overwhelmed by them; they take him to the ground. As the things rip him apart, he yells “Hope you choke on it you fucks!” They tear him to pieces in front of my eyes. It takes less than ten seconds.

Screaming, I take out the remaining creatures near me using the butt of my shotgun, crushing skulls. The ones who have just murdered my friend get extra treatment, smashing their heads into mush. I turn to face another one; it lunges at me and sinks its teeth into my throat. I manage to throw it off and cave in its rotting skull with one final swing. I fall to the ground, choking on the blood pouring from my neck and into what’s left of my throat. As the world begins to blur, I hear pistol shots coming from the back of the building. My final thoughts before all goes dark are of my friends … Blackness …

I feel … Strong … powerful. I don’t hurt.

I hear loud noises close by …
What are they
?

My eyelids feel like lead, but I force them open.

Where am I? How did I get here?

I look around and see someone at the back of the building. Loud noises and screams are coming from her.

She looks familiar … but … I can’t … remember …

She’s holding something … a gun
…
she’s shooting the others.

Rage … searing, blinding rage … and hunger, a burning, uncontrollable hunger. What’s happening to me?

I stand up and run toward the woman in the room. She doesn’t see me, her back is turned. All I can think about is this woman’s flesh
. So alive, so warm. I want to rip it from her body, tear her to pieces … hungry … this hunger’s unbearable! I must have her
!
I’m so close, I can smell her, even taste her in the pungent air. She turns around, raising her pistol. I see a flash of bright white light and the sound of thunder roars through my head …

THE END

WHERE MOTH AND RUST DESTROY

By

Thomas Emson

Mya dreamed of her zombie father coming down the stairs to eat her.

In her dream she was six. Six like she’d been when the temperatures soared and the dead came alive to eat the living. Six like she was twenty-one years ago when her mum and a stranger named Sawyer came home just in time to save her from her zombie father.

But in her dream no one came. In her dream Mya’s dad attacked and killed her. In her dream she was dead and then her eyes snapped open.

They lapsed into silence. She tried not to think about things too much. She fixed on the grey and empty road. It had once been called the M20. Along its verges lay the rusting hulks of army vehicles. Military Land Rovers and armoured personnel carriers ditched by soldiers. Even the charred wreck of a helicopter. All were remnants of the war against the zombies. A war humans had lost.

Zimmer drove past what had once been a tank. It triggered a memory in Mya. Twenty-one years ago, with her mother and Sawyer, Mya had fled a zombie-plagued London. They had driven out of the city and found an abandoned tank in the middle of the motorway. Surrounding it were the remains of soldiers, killed by the undead. Eaten to death. Like most of the population had been eaten to death.

Now as Zimmer drove, Mya scanned the road. A cluster of zombies were gathered up on the ridge. They were squatting over a pile of meat, clawing at it, scooping it into their mouths, their faces red with blood. It was probably human meat. Some poor sod stranded on the highway perhaps, hijacked as he or she made their way somewhere. Two decades after the dead had risen, the living were still trying to flee. In this new world of the dead, you were either food, breeder, or worker. You had to be. But some people tried to escape it. And they ended up like that poor sod on the ridge.

Zimmer said, “You’re a pretty thing, it’s a wonder you’ve not been hauled in for the breeding programme.”

Her skin crawled. “I’m infertile.”

“Right. They didn’t just make you food, then? That’s what they normally do, ain’t it. If you ain’t got a skill, I mean. If you ain’t no use to them. At least you’re of some use as food.”

“Well, I’ve got a skill.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Yeah, Zimmer – I’m willing to die for my fellow humans.” She smiled at him. He gawped, losing control of the truck for a second. The HGV swerved across the motorway. “Careful, Zimmer,” she said. “I never said I’d die for you, mate.”

“Hey, that’s a joke ain’t it? Yeah? You’re joking. What you said, what you said there, that’s what those Human First fellas say. You … you ain’t one of them nutters? You ain’t …”

“Who knows? Far as I’m concerned, you’re just an escort. This needs two people, this lark. I’d never do it solo, never. You ever been to a Z-World?”

“Political correctness everywhere – you couldn’t say boo to a goose, let along call it a goose. Had to call it, I don’t know, feathered sentient being, or something. Bollocks, it was. And women,” he glanced at her, “you wanted to be like men, you did.”

She thought for a second, her gaze scanning the empty motorway as they drove north. And then she said, “Sometimes I think it was for the best the zombies took control.”