This Plague of Days, Season Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (28 page)

M
OTHER
,
FATHER
,
SISTER
AND
STRANGE
BROTHER

T
he virologist awoke with a start and rubbed his eyes in a fog. He looked around the small, dim room blearily. The couch had a floral pattern. Someone had covered him with a scratchy wool blanket. The cracks between the wooden boards over the window glowed with bright sunshine. Aside from the boarded windows, Astrid’s house looked like any other cozy home, but for the soldier cleaning his assault rifle on the floor by the front door.

“How are you doing, Cameron?”

“How do you think? Those things are roaming the streets looking for snacks and I still haven’t figured out how to tell the lady of the house there’s no room for her on the sub. I figured I shouldn’t tell her until we’re ready to leave. No sense dragging out the drama.”

“Are the others up?”

“At the neighbor’s, scrounging.”

The houses along the street were all connected. It was the Royal Marine who suggested breaking through the wall to get to the next house instead of daring to go outside. The next residence held a case of instant oatmeal in the kitchen and rotting corpses in the bedroom.

Judging by the contents of their bedside tables and the smell of the place, the husband had succumbed to Sutr some time ago. The wife swallowed all the pills hoping to fall asleep and never awake. An easy death eluded her, however. She’d thrown up on the fancy lace gown she’d chosen for suicide. She died choking on vomit.

Sinjin-Smythe watched the Royal Marine’s deft hands as he put his rifle back together with a practiced series of clicks. Cameron worked automatically but his eyes said the man’s mind was far away.

“I asked about you, Cameron. You personally. How are
you
?”

The thousand-yard stare ebbed and he came back to the present. “Do you know anything about the Iran-Iraq war?”

“There was one. Besides that, nothing. What about it? You had something to do with Iran?”

The Royal Marine laughed. “I’m only twenty-eight! No, no secret missions there. But we studied it. War in all its forms. The first thing they tell you in training is to look left and right and one of those guys is dead or bound for a wheelchair. It’s supposed to shake us up and see who’s likely to go barmy. Instead, you look left, you look right and you think, I’ll go to this guy’s funeral and that guy’ll piss in a bag for the rest of his short, miserable life.”

Sinjin-Smythe rubbed his face and waited. When Cameron turned his attention to reloading his rifle’s magazines, he could wait no more. “About the Iran-Iraq war?”

“Ah. Yeah. The Iranians had a tactic for overwhelming Iraq positions. They called it the Wave. It was very effective.”

“What did they do?” By the look in Cameron’s eyes, Sinjin-Smythe wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“They sent the children first. Mostly young boys. They sent them swarming through minefields ahead of the real attack force. The children cleared the mines with their own bodies. If they made it through that, they ran at the Iraqi positions. Soldiers were forced to shoot children. People who’ve never been to war just shrug and say that’s war.”

“You don’t feel that way.”

Cameron paused and looked up at Sinjin-Smythe. “Another bit of history. A bunch of Nazis sit around a table. Their conference is to figure out the final solution to what they called The Jewish Question.”

“Ovens.”

“Sure. Everybody agrees that was evil. No arguments. But do you know one of the arguments for the ovens was that it was humane?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not for the Jews. They didn’t care about them, obviously. But they were concerned they’d make unfeeling monsters out of their own troops. Bullets aren’t just inefficient. Somebody has to pull the trigger and live with themselves afterward.”

Sinjin-Smythe looked at the floor. “No one could blame you for the zombies you killed.”

“But they weren’t zombies! That’s stupid! They were sick people. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got rabies, that’s all. Not long ago, breakfast wasn’t somebody’s neck. It was tea and crumpets over the morning crossword. Or whatever cold fish they eat in bleeding Iceland!”

Sinjin-Smythe looked at the ceiling, but the flecked cream paint offered no grand solutions. He shrugged. “All I can say is, thank you for saving my life and those of my friends.”

“Third history lesson they didn’t teach you in school: the Nazis at Dieppe. It was one of the worst military disasters in history. Canadians were trapped on a beach and getting mowed down by German machine guns.

“Men on machine guns fire in short bursts. They teach us that if your burst of fire takes longer than it takes to say ‘sonofabitch’, your barrel will overheat.” Cameron gave a grim smile. “Maybe they taught the German gunners to say ‘gott in himmel!’ The Nazis were monsters, but after massacring so many, even some of those gunners went into shock. You kill too many, it doesn’t feel like winning anymore.”

“You regret yesterday?”
 

“I’d save you all again, Doctor. Sure I would. But I’m worried about the future. How many monsters do you shoot before you become a monster? If the Nazis worried about it, certainly I should. There’s a great myth going around that only recruits, desk jockeys and the dumbest soldiers believe. We all say shooting the enemy isn’t supposed to matter.”

“It obviously matters to you. I’m glad.”

“It would be easier if it didn’t matter. I’d much rather be shooting anyone in a uniform. I’m worried I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. You already do.”

That gave Sinjin-Smythe pause. “What do you mean?”

Cameron shrugged. “Besides the snoring? What does, ‘
Montani semper liberi
’ mean? You said it over and over — ”

“Like I was trying to memorize it.”

It was Cameron’s turn to look surprised. “Aye.”

“It means ‘
Mountaineers are always free men
.’”

Cameron stared at him. “What — ”

“I have no idea and you wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain.”

A horn blared across the zombie-infested city three times. It came from the harbor. Reykjavik echoed with the short, sharp blasts. Howls of the infected answered.

The doctor leaped from the couch. “The rescue — ”

“Civvies get in here, front and center!” Cameron bawled. “That noise will bring every monster running!”

“What do we do?” Sinjin-Smythe asked.

“Run faster.”

“Oh…as long as you have a plan.”

S
EASON
2, E
PISODE
5

This Plague of Days

Robert Chazz Chute

Season 2

Episode 5

No matter how safe you think you are,

you will be tested.

*

Our daydreams hint at our purpose.

At night? Dreams fend off nightmares and nothingness.

A dream is your brain, desperate and struggling to breathe

Existence while it still can.

*

Scientific intelligence is our best hope.

When we’ve lost that, we’ll revert to magic words.

(Nona maji, kono no mai, patakai, patakai!)

Magic is the intuitive, compassionate
 

route to hope when all else fails.

Fiction can touch the human heart
 

when you’re out of rib spreaders.

*

Anyone can fall when our wings are clipped.

The Fallen are the most dangerous.
 

We have nothing to lose.

We are more lizard than brains.

~
Notes from The Last Cafe

*

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space — were it not that I have had bad dreams.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

T
HE
L
AST
C
AFE
LIES
TO
THE
E
AST

T
he infected ate Astrid a hundred yards from the rescue ship.
 

The boat was supposed to be an American submarine, but a Canadian Arctic research vessel named the
CCGS Amundsen
arrived instead. When the captain blew the ship’s horn three times, refugees knew their ride had arrived. Unfortunately, that sound was also the dinner bell for every zombie in Reykjavik.

Crisp air seared Cameron’s lungs as he Cameron brought up the rear, urging the civilians to run faster. Aasa and Aastha couldn’t run as fast as the adults, so Dayo and Sinjin-Smythe carried the little girls. Desi ran alongside them, his Walther at the ready. Aadi cleared the way with a length of steel pipe.

The Sutr-Z zombies couldn’t talk and they weren’t smart, but they weren’t dumb enough to get away from easily. Astrid had been behind Aadi when the infected attacked in a narrow spot between houses. There weren’t many attackers, but they came from both sides.

In a blink, Astrid was forced to the ground on her belly. The infected man who stood on her low back reached down and pulled at Astrid’s blonde-white hair. As she arched her back in pain, Astrid cried out and hair tore from her head in fistfuls. Another zombie, a large dishevelled woman with a conspicuously broken nose, clamped her teeth around the meat of Astrid’s calf.

Cameron shot from the hip. The bullet made a very neat hole in Astrid’s forehead. The back of her skull, however, became a bowl full of gray and white gore.

The Royal Marine almost threw up when the man on her back glanced his way before lunging to feast on Astrid’s brains. Cameron shuddered. Had he seen something wry in the ghoul’s face? Had that been the hint of a smirk?
A thank you?

He was about to empty his magazine into the infected. It was Desi who reached back and pulled Cameron out of the trap by his pack.
“Go! Go! Go!”

The British refugees pounded along a concrete pier, heading for the ship. There were already a few zombies ahead of them, trying to board the boat. Men with boathooks deterred them with savage blows. The gaffs were effective, but still more zombies rushed forward.

Seventy-five yards from the
Amundsen
, Cameron threw a grenade over his shoulder. The shrapnel did damage to his pursuers, but he thought the explosive would buy him more time. Instead, the concussion seemed to enrage the infected further.

Running against the wind, the Royal Marine fired behind him, shooting wildly as he ran. Reykjavik housed more than 120,000 people and it seemed like they each wanted a bite. He dared to glance back at fifty yards. He wished he hadn’t. They were gaining.

Aadi brained a couple of zombies with his steel pipe, swinging his makeshift weapon like a sword. That strategy proved successful until he made the mistake of trying to run the pipe through the heart of an approaching ghoul. It stuck. The zombie screeched and went down. The pipe stood erect from his gored torso like a flagpole.

Aadi paused to try to retrieve his weapon, but the old man he’d skewered held fast with both hands. Aadi abandoned the pipe and ran forward, pushing and kicking zombies out of the way.

“Come back!” Desi yelled. “Let me take point!”

Aadi was brave, but too small for his tactics. Pushing his way forward, he reached a wall of big Icelanders bent on boarding the
Amundsen
. One of the big men turned and grabbed Aadi by the throat.
 

The Sutr-Z zombie lunged for Aadi’s face. Instead of taking the young father’s nose, the muzzle of Desi’s pistol broke the zombie’s teeth. Blood sprayed Aadi and Desi as the policeman fired a shot through his attacker’s brain pan.

Aadi stumbled back as Desi spun the little man away to protect him from the zombies at the edge of the pier. Desi used his weight to push three more zombies into the water. The infected didn’t reach the water. The wind and waves pushed the ship closer and the bright red hull crushed their bodies against the wharf. The sound their bodies made were three thuds and wet snaps, pulping bone and flesh as they were smeared against the wharf before sliding into Reykjavik harbor.

Even in his anger, Desi cringed. “Ooh!”

The deck crew might have gored the Irish policeman with a boathook, too, but for his uniform and the pistol in his hand. When another two zombies came at him from each side, a gaff cracked one cannibal’s skull. Another crew member used a long, pointed gaff to spear the attacker and pull him into the cold water by the zombie’s skewered intestines.

The cannibals made no sound until they were gored. Then the rusty creak that came from their broken throats and addled brains built to what sounded like angry seagull cries.

Each holding a little girl tight, Dayo and Sinjin-Smythe raced past Desi and leapt aboard. Fortunately, the The
Amundsen’s
crew members saw them coming and caught the refugees as they landed so Aasa and Aastha didn’t crash into the deck.

The way cleared, Desi jumped aboard the
Amundsen’s
, whirled and fired the Walther until it clicked. His target, a tall zombie, towered above Aadi. The ghoul looked down at his wounds, apparently confused. He teetered and then collapsed backward. Desi screamed for Aadi and Cameron to run as he reloaded the pistol.

At twenty yards, the zombies caught up with the Royal Marine. Cameron swung the butt of his rifle and took down two, but four more runners were right behind. Two grabbed his backpack and pulled him off his feet. He fired his weapon from his back and, in a moment, he was up and sprinting for the rescue ship again.

Another zombie clawed at him and grabbed his pack. Cameron slipped it off his shoulders and kept going.