NavelTickler75
4th Level Yellow Feather
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THE LINE NOT HELD
The street smelled like death, decay and dried blood. But that wasn’t unusual these days. David Meyers huddled in the building that had once been a large bank, and stared out of slanted boards patched worked together with nails over a small window. It was like staring out a wooden spider’s web.
The sky was dark, with slow moving clouds hovering just across the horizon. There was a smell of rain, which brought David a bit of relief. The things didn’t seem to like getting wet. And those too stupid to get out the rain smelled worse than a wet dog. Buildings, and the skeletons of other buildings, lined the streets and narrows of the city that was now a ghost town. What had been home to business, bookstores, and fast food joints were now the homes of the shambling plague. Whenever storms came across, the living dead would lurch toward these buildings, seeking better conditions.
That thought disturbed David as much as it relieved him. He’d slept for most of the night, so he hadn’t been watching when his, “neighbors” had headed indoors. Which meant that there could be a few of them or even only one that might have tried to get in to the bank.
The forty year old man sighed, and reached down picked up his hand gun. He investigated it as completely as he had been taught in the military. Convinced it was in working order, and tip top shape, he turned and walked to check the blockades in the windows and doors.
*******
After an hour of making sure everything was secure, and that there was no undead life moving about, David went for the main office of the bank, and checked the computer. When he had come here, the thing had been long since dead, as everything electric had. But he had found a generator in one of the other abandoned buildings, and managed to bring it back to the bank, along with enough juice to last him a good six weeks. In two days, that juice would be gone, and unless he could find some more, so would the computer.
David rechecked his email, messages that had been there for years, as if looking at them for the first time, taking his time to reach each one, including the spam. He then surfed the web for an hour, managing to get a glimpse of this post or that. Occasionally he’d get lucky and find an online forum still being run, with pretty much recent posts. Humans still were out there, there was hope.
The last two things he did, was to compose a four page love letter to his fiancee, always writing the same thing. And then his vigil would end by watching the video of that botched military mission, which had cost him everything. He clicked on Youtube, and watched as the hordes advanced on his line. Gunfire, and the moans of the walking dead played out, like some kind of bizarre symphony. The line held, and held, and held, until one lone terrified voice cried out in panic, and fled. David watched as the younger version of himself bolted from the line, pushing past his brothers and sisters in the field. He watched as his younger self ignored orders to stop and return. He watched his younger self shot the commanding officer, who tried to wrestle him to the ground, and then watched as his younger self raced to ‘safety’.
The video ended, and he debated playing it again, but decided against it. He clicked off the connection, then the box and made a quick glance at the surveillance room, checking on everything to make sure it was secure. When he was certain it was, David hurried down to a long corridor that he made earlier, which connected the bank to another building that was thankfully still intact.
He’d made sure to check the cameras he’d installed in that building too, but he couldn’t be too careful. The newer ones were fast and dangerous, but thankfully too young and hungry to be crafty. It was the older ones, who though slow, were smart enough to use their wits for an ambush. They’d know if they were being watched. And they’d know to hide until the proper time. The middle aged man clicked his weapon’s safety off, and opened the door.
************
He had managed to make it to the bakery, just a block in a half, down from the safety of the bank and the other building. It took two hours, most of the time him hiding in the shadows, but it was a necessary battle. He had to get food. Funny, he was practically food, searching for food. The food chain could be a serious bitch.
What bread was left he quickly popped into a bag, his senses alert as ever. The slightest brush of movement caught his eyes, his head lifting up over the shelves like a groundhog. Nothing, there was a storm coming after all, and this building seemed safe. David plopped a roll into his mouth, wrenching at the taste. But it was food. Better food than the army.
Visions of bullets flashed across his eyes. The cries of his comrades… of his officers. David shook his head, and reached for a box of doughnuts, and jumped as a hand clamped down on his wrist.
It was a male, with clumped blonde hair that fell from its head. The corpse stared at him for a few seconds, and then opened its mouth. A harsh, dead smell wafted from its open maw, its teeth dark yellow with rot, its gums gray from neglect. No sound came from its mouth, as its lungs were long dead and dried up.
David had only a second to react, and though he reached for his gun, he choice to yank a bowie knife from the side of his hip, and thrust it at an arching angle into its mouth. The zombie back peddled for a moment and, yanked David with him, nearly taking him over the counter with it. David used his military training and twisted free of the grip, letting the corpse drop over the edge of the counter to disappear. With a solid movement, David swung himself over booth, and pressed the blade deeper into the top of the zombie’s mouth. A soft, gurgling sound soon came from the mouth, and a think yellow puss oozed down from the blade. David pulled the knife from the now non-lethal corpse, wiped it off, and slipped it back where it belonged.
David grabbed his supplies, and quickly made his way out of the store. If there was one zombie here, there was bound to be others. They followed each other like lemmings. Forget them being homing missiles as the reports originally called them. They were more like blind hornets who would only stalk their pray if the sent of nectar, or in deads’ case, blood, was within a one mile radius. And they’d quickly lose interest if you got pasted that radius.
The young man, along with many others, had discovered that misfortunately too late. All sorts of stories were reported about the enemy back then, and to hear many news heads talk, these things were practically indestructible, with super speed, hearing, and intelligence. If only people knew the truth, there might never have been an apocalypse. The only thing that really worked for them was their sense of hearing, and that was only just slightly better than the living. So a gun shot would have attracted a few more than just a mile away. Which was why he hadn’t used the gun at the bakery.
David continued to slink back toward his base, and stopped, dumbfounded at the sight of a second zombie, clawing at the doors. He could have finished it off, without making much noise, or it knowing what had hit it. But what stopped him was not a chance of mistake or bringing in “reinforcements”. It was who the corpse used to be.
It was a female, nearly naked now. Its hair was long and tattered, but it was still as red as it had been that day. What clothes it wore was still clearly camo. It still wore its ammo clips, and in one loose hand dangled its gun. Not that it knew how to use it anymore. “Darla.”
The name slipped out of his lips before he could slam them shut. The corpse stopped its clawing and stared at the door dumbly. It was almost as if it assumed that the door had called its name. Then a moment later, with a few stiff movements, it turned and looked at David.
It was Darla. For all those times he had to watch the clips of his cowardice. Now he was face to face with the reminder.
************
The roar of guns and the smell of sweat filled the battlefield, along with the sweet decaying smell of flesh, the harsh ever growing smell of advancing mushrooms. Still the line held, despite how many of them advanced.
“God, you think it could be easier than this,” the carrot top next to David laughed. She aimed, closed an eye, and fired, taking out half of the skull from ten year old child whose skin was a dark lime green. “I mean, maybe could actually stand still or move into the crosshairs.”
David wasn’t as confident as the beautiful red haired young woman. For the first hour, he’d been ready to throw up. He only had shot four or maybe five of them, and did his best to only aim at the really decaying ones. As the more recently deceased or converted were blown to kingdom come, the more his resolve to stay and fight faltered.
“You okay, kid?” she asked, looking at him as a lull on their front hit. “You’re turning as green as they are.” She smiled, “You didn’t get bit by one of them, did you?” she asked playfully.
“Maybe we should do the rookie a favor and put him out of the misery of the curse,” another man joked, aiming the gun at David’s head.
“Shut the fuck up, Craig,” Dara Nelson hissed. The other man looked at her for a long second, and flicked her off. She turned to look at David and patted his shoulder. “Look at it this way, we’re doing them a favor. There’s no one who could possibly enjoy killing their family and friends to eat them.”
“I… I guess,” he muttered.
“You signed up for a reason, right? I mean, this is putting our stamp on history, to preserve our species.”
“And there she goes again,” another soldier sighed. “Ever the public speaker against the zombie menace.”
“When this is over she’ll end up a politician and try to convince people that they should unite against other menaces,” a third piped up.
“Like illegal immigrates and tax raises on the rich!” the first soldier laughed. The scuffle of feet coming toward their direction stopped the teasing as David’s squad shot up forward and began blasting at the decaying corpses.
************
David managed to lure Darla away from the door, until he could get by her, and then used himself as bait so that he could get her into the building. It was a stupid move, he should have taken his gun and put her out of her misery. Or cut her throat out. Anything that would have brought her peace… and given himself more security. Instead he managed to pry her inside, and lured her away, shutting them both in the bank.
David wasted no time in overpowering the corpse, and securing her arms and legs. Darla offered very little resistance, save for a silent hiss of her open mouth as she tried to reach for him. The former soldier reached for a rope, and placed it firmly in her maw. He studied her, making sure there was no escape, no way for her to break free and attack. Then carried her carefully up the stairs, until he reached the office and placed her in a chair, binding the zombie there too.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said with an odd smile. It was odd thinking of this dead body as a “her”. All this time he made a point of calling the zombies “it”. It made it easier for him when he had to shoot them. His heart pounded as he stared at Darla, watching her just look at him with her brown eyes. She didn’t move much. It was like a mouse looking right into the eyes of an non moving snake, right before it struck.
David sighed, and got up, jerking as Darla inched after him, those dead eyes all of the sudden brimming with a quick blast of life. An all too familiar sliver of dread filled his body. “It… it wasn’t like I meant to leave,” he muttered. She sat motionless again, as if she were waiting patiently for his excuse.
The young man sighed again, and shot out of the room, making sure it was locked. Behind the door, Darla rocked in the chair, trying to follow. David peeked in to make sure she was okay, and then relocked it. All the rest of the night he did his duties, copying them in perfection. There were no outbreaks, no neighbors trying to burst into the bank, and thankfully, the clouds broke loose. With rain, it would mean that there would be no attacks, of course.
Once his weapons were cleaned, and he bathed, David cooked his meal, and walked back to Darla. There was silence coming from behind the door, until he was right next to it, and then the scuffle of feet, the squeal of a chair. She knew without even needing to see him. Or perhaps it was the smell of the hot food.
David opened the door, and she lurched in the chair at him with all her strength. The rope in her mouth was covered in a dark yellow ooze. She’d been chewing on it, catching one of her teeth in the fabric. David inched as far from her he could and sat down in another chair. He took a fork of dark brown beans, and shoveled them in his mouth. “Not the first time we ate together,” he murmured, looking at her.
************
He sat down next to her, his body shaking after three days of fighting. To top it off, the first promise of really good food that had been promised was nothing more than mildly warm beans, and squalid water. “I thought the country’s supposed to treat their soldiers better than this,” he whined.
Darla chuckled, elbowing his ribs. “The foot soldiers? Cannon folder? Oh come on, what else do you expect them to feed us? Gotta feed all the good stuff to the generals and officers who don’t even know the face of the enemy.”
He took another bite of the beans, and swallowed. “I can’t believe its been this long. I didn’t think there were this many.”
“Yet another thing that cannon fodder isn’t specially enough for,” she growled. “Why explain the truth to them in completion?”
“So, why fight for a government who treats you like shit?” David snarled, his eyes growing angry. “I mean, I only fought because I was drafted.”
Darla stopped chewing and investigated him carefully. “What?”
“The kid’s too special to risk his life for his family and country,” one of the soldiers cursed. Someone followed up the disgusted statement by spitting at David.
“My family was probably among the first wave of the enemy,” David snarled out. He dropped his bowl and glared at the soldier. “Every last one of them were killed in a shootout between rival gangs.” He shuddered.
There was silence. “I wanted to do nothing more than to leave the country. To leave the reminder of what happened. Then of course the dead rose. And when the first wave of the army couldn’t hold them back, or for whatever reason, didn’t, came the draft.”
The silence was deafening. All those eyes focused on him made his skin crawl, and David looked away. “So now you know, okay?” He got up, and stormed away, not even bothering to look at Darla.
************
He tossed and turned all night after finishing his dinner. Despite the rain, it was god awful quiet. No thunder, although there was definitely flashes of lightning. As morning came, and the storm stayed, David rose from his bed, and headed back to the room where she was. He opened the door, and stared into those eyes filled with both death, but brief life as hunger called to her.
“What you must think of me, huh?” he sighed. David walked over to the computer, switched it on, and pushed play. Up came the images, the sounds, the chaos. And for the first time he found her eyes not on him, but on the computer. Maybe she thought those little people dashing about, shooting guns easier prey than him. But as an image of herself, alive and flustered, flashed on the screen, they seemed to focus.
“Like I said, I didn’t mean to leave, not really.” His head swerved from the computer to her and back. “I was scared, I admit it. The first few waves had so many long dead that even though I didn’t have a stern foundation as you did, I had no problem shooting. But as the fresher came…,” he swallowed. “The second and third and fourth generations, I guess they’d be called…” He looked at her, watching her, watch herself. Then eerily, as she screamed on the screen, she turned to look up at him. Her eyes were still dead, but there was a stone age focus to them. They were eyes of knowing. Or at least it looked that way to David. Her lips turned upward into a scowl.
************
“Shoot them, damn it, David shoot,” she screamed. Darla turned to focus on the ever growing tide of zombies, and back at her gun man. “Don’t just fucking stand there, blow their ever loving heads off!”
But he froze. He couldn’t shoot. His parents were those marching forward, and his kid sister. Cradled in a bent and broken arm, his mother held the wailing corpse of his younger brother. David aimed, but his fingers would not obey his mind. Their eyes seemed fixed on him. And as he turned away from them, to any other target, it seemed to him that they too were glaring just as intently on him, almost mentally asking him if he had the guts to pull the trigger on his family.
“Damn it to hell,” Darla shrieked. She finished unloosing what remained of her clip, and then slapped him as hard as he could. “Snap out of it, we can’t have you losing it now.” She followed his gaze, finding the family, and sighed. Darla reloaded her weapon, aimed and shot down one after another each one of his family. “Now, get it together!”
One would think that with his family’s corpses gone, he would have been freed from their spell. But something snapped. The remainder of the enemy seemed to stare at him as if condemning his weakness for letting them be murdered. Or perhaps the energy of his parents, and siblings simply slipped from the fleshy remains of one corpse and entered into another.
Smoke and sweat blurred his vision. His heart pounded, and he took a step back. Somewhere he could hear her scream his name, but it didn’t register. For the second time, he’d let his family get gunned down. The first time, all they wanted was to stage an intervention to get him out of street life. The second time they wanted something else. And both times, they’d be denied by hot steel.
David screamed at the top of his lungs, turning in terror and madness. The officers around him screamed for him to return to his post. Darla even raced after him to yank him down, but he continued to dash away, fighting his way out of the throngs of the living. To get away from the curse. At some point, someone managed to grab his shoulders, and take him down to his knees, but he turned and fired. And then fled. He had supposed he had hard a high pitched cry of pain as his gun went off, but he convinced himself that was all in his mind.
************
Now he was staring at the video, really staring at it. He’d only allowed himself to watch it partially. But the second half told the story. It had been Darla who had tried to tackle him to the ground, and it had been Darla whom he fired his gun into. Some of the officers opened fire and had hit him in his hips and shoulders, and despite being knocked down with the force of the bullets, he managed to shot up and dart away.
He also discovered that his bout of insanity had flooded the line and a few other soldiers also decided for reasons of fear or selfishness to break ranks. It hadn’t been his fault entirely, which was foolishness for him to ever think so. But with that small gap gone, the dead flooded the ranks of the army, and the officers, who could have and should have by all rights brought him down quick without a distraction, found themselves fighting for their own lives.
The image flickered as a few corpses reached Darla, who screamed and begged for help, begged for the corpses to leave her be, all to no avail. They bit into her and tore flesh, leaving her a wailing woman, broken from the strong Amazonian she’d been weeks before.
David fought the urge to vomit. It might not have entirely been his fault that the line did not hold, but it was his that Darla hadn’t escaped. It was his fault that his family hadn’t escaped. He turned to look at her now in that chair. She returned her gaze.
The young man opened his mouth to speak, but found he couldn’t. Instead he untied her, and yanked the rope from her mouth. He dropped his guns, and stood there with no motion. He just stared into those eyes, the same eyes his family had both times. He knew he should shot her, or run. But he was tired of running, and she’d done nothing to him to make him kill her. No, this time the line would hold.
She stared at him, and then the glimmer of dark life flooded them. Darla launched at him, and her teeth found the soft tissue of his left ear. Pain flooded him, as they tumbled down. But he did not care. The curse he’d tried to flee from for so long, which he had avoided three times over now, would not be denied this time. He was tired of running from the grim reaper, from justice, and from his fate.
Darla held him down, devouring his ear, and gnawed at the meat around his skull. David felt blood spurt everywhere, covering the zombie’s face as she ate. Soon a cool rush of darkness overtook him as she penetrated his skull, and with the squeal of a computer that was about to die, the lights went out. The curse had its victim at last.
End Notes: This story also evolved along the way. I always wanted to have this soldier relieving leaving the line of his unit, which paved the way for his unit, and perhaps (at least in his mind) the entire army and country being devoured. It was going to end with him surviving originally. But as I wrote, that didn’t work for me. I found I enjoyed playing that parania of what he did against him more and more, making him relive it. Thus of course the video on the computer. Then Darla came along and I thought, if he was this down watching what he did on the computer, or at least watching the FIRST half of it, what would happen if he saw an end result of it?
I also liked going into why he was so freaked about shooting fresh zombies. I think we’d all have a harder time gunning down a fresh zombie as opposed to a decaying one. The history of his family’s death hit me hard today, and I ran with it. Ultimately he was a man running from death, doing everything he could do to avoid it, even immoral means, but like all humans, can’t. He ultimately decides he has to be responsible and accept the ultimate end of his human life.
The zombies being silent, making no sounds except for their feet is something I’ve wanted to play with for some time, and something I’ll work with in other zombie fictions. To me, if its truly a dead body, with nothing working, save for perhaps the brain, then there’s no need for a beating heart, which means no need for lungs. No lungs means no moaning, or talking, growling or anything else that zombies have done. Sure you could have sound by pushing on their frame, but they couldn’t make sounds on their own.
another zombie fic i did for the same site as the first
The street smelled like death, decay and dried blood. But that wasn’t unusual these days. David Meyers huddled in the building that had once been a large bank, and stared out of slanted boards patched worked together with nails over a small window. It was like staring out a wooden spider’s web.
The sky was dark, with slow moving clouds hovering just across the horizon. There was a smell of rain, which brought David a bit of relief. The things didn’t seem to like getting wet. And those too stupid to get out the rain smelled worse than a wet dog. Buildings, and the skeletons of other buildings, lined the streets and narrows of the city that was now a ghost town. What had been home to business, bookstores, and fast food joints were now the homes of the shambling plague. Whenever storms came across, the living dead would lurch toward these buildings, seeking better conditions.
That thought disturbed David as much as it relieved him. He’d slept for most of the night, so he hadn’t been watching when his, “neighbors” had headed indoors. Which meant that there could be a few of them or even only one that might have tried to get in to the bank.
The forty year old man sighed, and reached down picked up his hand gun. He investigated it as completely as he had been taught in the military. Convinced it was in working order, and tip top shape, he turned and walked to check the blockades in the windows and doors.
*******
After an hour of making sure everything was secure, and that there was no undead life moving about, David went for the main office of the bank, and checked the computer. When he had come here, the thing had been long since dead, as everything electric had. But he had found a generator in one of the other abandoned buildings, and managed to bring it back to the bank, along with enough juice to last him a good six weeks. In two days, that juice would be gone, and unless he could find some more, so would the computer.
David rechecked his email, messages that had been there for years, as if looking at them for the first time, taking his time to reach each one, including the spam. He then surfed the web for an hour, managing to get a glimpse of this post or that. Occasionally he’d get lucky and find an online forum still being run, with pretty much recent posts. Humans still were out there, there was hope.
The last two things he did, was to compose a four page love letter to his fiancee, always writing the same thing. And then his vigil would end by watching the video of that botched military mission, which had cost him everything. He clicked on Youtube, and watched as the hordes advanced on his line. Gunfire, and the moans of the walking dead played out, like some kind of bizarre symphony. The line held, and held, and held, until one lone terrified voice cried out in panic, and fled. David watched as the younger version of himself bolted from the line, pushing past his brothers and sisters in the field. He watched as his younger self ignored orders to stop and return. He watched his younger self shot the commanding officer, who tried to wrestle him to the ground, and then watched as his younger self raced to ‘safety’.
The video ended, and he debated playing it again, but decided against it. He clicked off the connection, then the box and made a quick glance at the surveillance room, checking on everything to make sure it was secure. When he was certain it was, David hurried down to a long corridor that he made earlier, which connected the bank to another building that was thankfully still intact.
He’d made sure to check the cameras he’d installed in that building too, but he couldn’t be too careful. The newer ones were fast and dangerous, but thankfully too young and hungry to be crafty. It was the older ones, who though slow, were smart enough to use their wits for an ambush. They’d know if they were being watched. And they’d know to hide until the proper time. The middle aged man clicked his weapon’s safety off, and opened the door.
************
He had managed to make it to the bakery, just a block in a half, down from the safety of the bank and the other building. It took two hours, most of the time him hiding in the shadows, but it was a necessary battle. He had to get food. Funny, he was practically food, searching for food. The food chain could be a serious bitch.
What bread was left he quickly popped into a bag, his senses alert as ever. The slightest brush of movement caught his eyes, his head lifting up over the shelves like a groundhog. Nothing, there was a storm coming after all, and this building seemed safe. David plopped a roll into his mouth, wrenching at the taste. But it was food. Better food than the army.
Visions of bullets flashed across his eyes. The cries of his comrades… of his officers. David shook his head, and reached for a box of doughnuts, and jumped as a hand clamped down on his wrist.
It was a male, with clumped blonde hair that fell from its head. The corpse stared at him for a few seconds, and then opened its mouth. A harsh, dead smell wafted from its open maw, its teeth dark yellow with rot, its gums gray from neglect. No sound came from its mouth, as its lungs were long dead and dried up.
David had only a second to react, and though he reached for his gun, he choice to yank a bowie knife from the side of his hip, and thrust it at an arching angle into its mouth. The zombie back peddled for a moment and, yanked David with him, nearly taking him over the counter with it. David used his military training and twisted free of the grip, letting the corpse drop over the edge of the counter to disappear. With a solid movement, David swung himself over booth, and pressed the blade deeper into the top of the zombie’s mouth. A soft, gurgling sound soon came from the mouth, and a think yellow puss oozed down from the blade. David pulled the knife from the now non-lethal corpse, wiped it off, and slipped it back where it belonged.
David grabbed his supplies, and quickly made his way out of the store. If there was one zombie here, there was bound to be others. They followed each other like lemmings. Forget them being homing missiles as the reports originally called them. They were more like blind hornets who would only stalk their pray if the sent of nectar, or in deads’ case, blood, was within a one mile radius. And they’d quickly lose interest if you got pasted that radius.
The young man, along with many others, had discovered that misfortunately too late. All sorts of stories were reported about the enemy back then, and to hear many news heads talk, these things were practically indestructible, with super speed, hearing, and intelligence. If only people knew the truth, there might never have been an apocalypse. The only thing that really worked for them was their sense of hearing, and that was only just slightly better than the living. So a gun shot would have attracted a few more than just a mile away. Which was why he hadn’t used the gun at the bakery.
David continued to slink back toward his base, and stopped, dumbfounded at the sight of a second zombie, clawing at the doors. He could have finished it off, without making much noise, or it knowing what had hit it. But what stopped him was not a chance of mistake or bringing in “reinforcements”. It was who the corpse used to be.
It was a female, nearly naked now. Its hair was long and tattered, but it was still as red as it had been that day. What clothes it wore was still clearly camo. It still wore its ammo clips, and in one loose hand dangled its gun. Not that it knew how to use it anymore. “Darla.”
The name slipped out of his lips before he could slam them shut. The corpse stopped its clawing and stared at the door dumbly. It was almost as if it assumed that the door had called its name. Then a moment later, with a few stiff movements, it turned and looked at David.
It was Darla. For all those times he had to watch the clips of his cowardice. Now he was face to face with the reminder.
************
The roar of guns and the smell of sweat filled the battlefield, along with the sweet decaying smell of flesh, the harsh ever growing smell of advancing mushrooms. Still the line held, despite how many of them advanced.
“God, you think it could be easier than this,” the carrot top next to David laughed. She aimed, closed an eye, and fired, taking out half of the skull from ten year old child whose skin was a dark lime green. “I mean, maybe could actually stand still or move into the crosshairs.”
David wasn’t as confident as the beautiful red haired young woman. For the first hour, he’d been ready to throw up. He only had shot four or maybe five of them, and did his best to only aim at the really decaying ones. As the more recently deceased or converted were blown to kingdom come, the more his resolve to stay and fight faltered.
“You okay, kid?” she asked, looking at him as a lull on their front hit. “You’re turning as green as they are.” She smiled, “You didn’t get bit by one of them, did you?” she asked playfully.
“Maybe we should do the rookie a favor and put him out of the misery of the curse,” another man joked, aiming the gun at David’s head.
“Shut the fuck up, Craig,” Dara Nelson hissed. The other man looked at her for a long second, and flicked her off. She turned to look at David and patted his shoulder. “Look at it this way, we’re doing them a favor. There’s no one who could possibly enjoy killing their family and friends to eat them.”
“I… I guess,” he muttered.
“You signed up for a reason, right? I mean, this is putting our stamp on history, to preserve our species.”
“And there she goes again,” another soldier sighed. “Ever the public speaker against the zombie menace.”
“When this is over she’ll end up a politician and try to convince people that they should unite against other menaces,” a third piped up.
“Like illegal immigrates and tax raises on the rich!” the first soldier laughed. The scuffle of feet coming toward their direction stopped the teasing as David’s squad shot up forward and began blasting at the decaying corpses.
************
David managed to lure Darla away from the door, until he could get by her, and then used himself as bait so that he could get her into the building. It was a stupid move, he should have taken his gun and put her out of her misery. Or cut her throat out. Anything that would have brought her peace… and given himself more security. Instead he managed to pry her inside, and lured her away, shutting them both in the bank.
David wasted no time in overpowering the corpse, and securing her arms and legs. Darla offered very little resistance, save for a silent hiss of her open mouth as she tried to reach for him. The former soldier reached for a rope, and placed it firmly in her maw. He studied her, making sure there was no escape, no way for her to break free and attack. Then carried her carefully up the stairs, until he reached the office and placed her in a chair, binding the zombie there too.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said with an odd smile. It was odd thinking of this dead body as a “her”. All this time he made a point of calling the zombies “it”. It made it easier for him when he had to shoot them. His heart pounded as he stared at Darla, watching her just look at him with her brown eyes. She didn’t move much. It was like a mouse looking right into the eyes of an non moving snake, right before it struck.
David sighed, and got up, jerking as Darla inched after him, those dead eyes all of the sudden brimming with a quick blast of life. An all too familiar sliver of dread filled his body. “It… it wasn’t like I meant to leave,” he muttered. She sat motionless again, as if she were waiting patiently for his excuse.
The young man sighed again, and shot out of the room, making sure it was locked. Behind the door, Darla rocked in the chair, trying to follow. David peeked in to make sure she was okay, and then relocked it. All the rest of the night he did his duties, copying them in perfection. There were no outbreaks, no neighbors trying to burst into the bank, and thankfully, the clouds broke loose. With rain, it would mean that there would be no attacks, of course.
Once his weapons were cleaned, and he bathed, David cooked his meal, and walked back to Darla. There was silence coming from behind the door, until he was right next to it, and then the scuffle of feet, the squeal of a chair. She knew without even needing to see him. Or perhaps it was the smell of the hot food.
David opened the door, and she lurched in the chair at him with all her strength. The rope in her mouth was covered in a dark yellow ooze. She’d been chewing on it, catching one of her teeth in the fabric. David inched as far from her he could and sat down in another chair. He took a fork of dark brown beans, and shoveled them in his mouth. “Not the first time we ate together,” he murmured, looking at her.
************
He sat down next to her, his body shaking after three days of fighting. To top it off, the first promise of really good food that had been promised was nothing more than mildly warm beans, and squalid water. “I thought the country’s supposed to treat their soldiers better than this,” he whined.
Darla chuckled, elbowing his ribs. “The foot soldiers? Cannon folder? Oh come on, what else do you expect them to feed us? Gotta feed all the good stuff to the generals and officers who don’t even know the face of the enemy.”
He took another bite of the beans, and swallowed. “I can’t believe its been this long. I didn’t think there were this many.”
“Yet another thing that cannon fodder isn’t specially enough for,” she growled. “Why explain the truth to them in completion?”
“So, why fight for a government who treats you like shit?” David snarled, his eyes growing angry. “I mean, I only fought because I was drafted.”
Darla stopped chewing and investigated him carefully. “What?”
“The kid’s too special to risk his life for his family and country,” one of the soldiers cursed. Someone followed up the disgusted statement by spitting at David.
“My family was probably among the first wave of the enemy,” David snarled out. He dropped his bowl and glared at the soldier. “Every last one of them were killed in a shootout between rival gangs.” He shuddered.
There was silence. “I wanted to do nothing more than to leave the country. To leave the reminder of what happened. Then of course the dead rose. And when the first wave of the army couldn’t hold them back, or for whatever reason, didn’t, came the draft.”
The silence was deafening. All those eyes focused on him made his skin crawl, and David looked away. “So now you know, okay?” He got up, and stormed away, not even bothering to look at Darla.
************
He tossed and turned all night after finishing his dinner. Despite the rain, it was god awful quiet. No thunder, although there was definitely flashes of lightning. As morning came, and the storm stayed, David rose from his bed, and headed back to the room where she was. He opened the door, and stared into those eyes filled with both death, but brief life as hunger called to her.
“What you must think of me, huh?” he sighed. David walked over to the computer, switched it on, and pushed play. Up came the images, the sounds, the chaos. And for the first time he found her eyes not on him, but on the computer. Maybe she thought those little people dashing about, shooting guns easier prey than him. But as an image of herself, alive and flustered, flashed on the screen, they seemed to focus.
“Like I said, I didn’t mean to leave, not really.” His head swerved from the computer to her and back. “I was scared, I admit it. The first few waves had so many long dead that even though I didn’t have a stern foundation as you did, I had no problem shooting. But as the fresher came…,” he swallowed. “The second and third and fourth generations, I guess they’d be called…” He looked at her, watching her, watch herself. Then eerily, as she screamed on the screen, she turned to look up at him. Her eyes were still dead, but there was a stone age focus to them. They were eyes of knowing. Or at least it looked that way to David. Her lips turned upward into a scowl.
************
“Shoot them, damn it, David shoot,” she screamed. Darla turned to focus on the ever growing tide of zombies, and back at her gun man. “Don’t just fucking stand there, blow their ever loving heads off!”
But he froze. He couldn’t shoot. His parents were those marching forward, and his kid sister. Cradled in a bent and broken arm, his mother held the wailing corpse of his younger brother. David aimed, but his fingers would not obey his mind. Their eyes seemed fixed on him. And as he turned away from them, to any other target, it seemed to him that they too were glaring just as intently on him, almost mentally asking him if he had the guts to pull the trigger on his family.
“Damn it to hell,” Darla shrieked. She finished unloosing what remained of her clip, and then slapped him as hard as he could. “Snap out of it, we can’t have you losing it now.” She followed his gaze, finding the family, and sighed. Darla reloaded her weapon, aimed and shot down one after another each one of his family. “Now, get it together!”
One would think that with his family’s corpses gone, he would have been freed from their spell. But something snapped. The remainder of the enemy seemed to stare at him as if condemning his weakness for letting them be murdered. Or perhaps the energy of his parents, and siblings simply slipped from the fleshy remains of one corpse and entered into another.
Smoke and sweat blurred his vision. His heart pounded, and he took a step back. Somewhere he could hear her scream his name, but it didn’t register. For the second time, he’d let his family get gunned down. The first time, all they wanted was to stage an intervention to get him out of street life. The second time they wanted something else. And both times, they’d be denied by hot steel.
David screamed at the top of his lungs, turning in terror and madness. The officers around him screamed for him to return to his post. Darla even raced after him to yank him down, but he continued to dash away, fighting his way out of the throngs of the living. To get away from the curse. At some point, someone managed to grab his shoulders, and take him down to his knees, but he turned and fired. And then fled. He had supposed he had hard a high pitched cry of pain as his gun went off, but he convinced himself that was all in his mind.
************
Now he was staring at the video, really staring at it. He’d only allowed himself to watch it partially. But the second half told the story. It had been Darla who had tried to tackle him to the ground, and it had been Darla whom he fired his gun into. Some of the officers opened fire and had hit him in his hips and shoulders, and despite being knocked down with the force of the bullets, he managed to shot up and dart away.
He also discovered that his bout of insanity had flooded the line and a few other soldiers also decided for reasons of fear or selfishness to break ranks. It hadn’t been his fault entirely, which was foolishness for him to ever think so. But with that small gap gone, the dead flooded the ranks of the army, and the officers, who could have and should have by all rights brought him down quick without a distraction, found themselves fighting for their own lives.
The image flickered as a few corpses reached Darla, who screamed and begged for help, begged for the corpses to leave her be, all to no avail. They bit into her and tore flesh, leaving her a wailing woman, broken from the strong Amazonian she’d been weeks before.
David fought the urge to vomit. It might not have entirely been his fault that the line did not hold, but it was his that Darla hadn’t escaped. It was his fault that his family hadn’t escaped. He turned to look at her now in that chair. She returned her gaze.
The young man opened his mouth to speak, but found he couldn’t. Instead he untied her, and yanked the rope from her mouth. He dropped his guns, and stood there with no motion. He just stared into those eyes, the same eyes his family had both times. He knew he should shot her, or run. But he was tired of running, and she’d done nothing to him to make him kill her. No, this time the line would hold.
She stared at him, and then the glimmer of dark life flooded them. Darla launched at him, and her teeth found the soft tissue of his left ear. Pain flooded him, as they tumbled down. But he did not care. The curse he’d tried to flee from for so long, which he had avoided three times over now, would not be denied this time. He was tired of running from the grim reaper, from justice, and from his fate.
Darla held him down, devouring his ear, and gnawed at the meat around his skull. David felt blood spurt everywhere, covering the zombie’s face as she ate. Soon a cool rush of darkness overtook him as she penetrated his skull, and with the squeal of a computer that was about to die, the lights went out. The curse had its victim at last.
End Notes: This story also evolved along the way. I always wanted to have this soldier relieving leaving the line of his unit, which paved the way for his unit, and perhaps (at least in his mind) the entire army and country being devoured. It was going to end with him surviving originally. But as I wrote, that didn’t work for me. I found I enjoyed playing that parania of what he did against him more and more, making him relive it. Thus of course the video on the computer. Then Darla came along and I thought, if he was this down watching what he did on the computer, or at least watching the FIRST half of it, what would happen if he saw an end result of it?
I also liked going into why he was so freaked about shooting fresh zombies. I think we’d all have a harder time gunning down a fresh zombie as opposed to a decaying one. The history of his family’s death hit me hard today, and I ran with it. Ultimately he was a man running from death, doing everything he could do to avoid it, even immoral means, but like all humans, can’t. He ultimately decides he has to be responsible and accept the ultimate end of his human life.
The zombies being silent, making no sounds except for their feet is something I’ve wanted to play with for some time, and something I’ll work with in other zombie fictions. To me, if its truly a dead body, with nothing working, save for perhaps the brain, then there’s no need for a beating heart, which means no need for lungs. No lungs means no moaning, or talking, growling or anything else that zombies have done. Sure you could have sound by pushing on their frame, but they couldn’t make sounds on their own.
another zombie fic i did for the same site as the first
