Byron : A Zombie Tale (Part 1) (7 page)

It was well past midnight when we had finally crawled through the hidden panel in John’s apartment into the Sanctuary beyond. It was a new day, but for all practical purposes, the old day hadn’t yet ended. The horde of creatures which was following us, drawn by the smell of John’s own blood, had breached the entry to his apartment building and followed him inside.

We could hear them in the hallway outside the apartment. They were storming up and down the hallway, unable to locate just where that delectable odor had escaped to. John motioned for us all to follow him into one of the bedrooms away from the hallway. “Evan,” he said in a hushed tone, “draw them away.”

I watched as Evan slowly and quietly opened the window facing out onto the street. He had in his hand a water balloon filled with some fluid and a large sling-shot. Evan shot me a smile and said out the corner of his mouth “sorry about the close-call with that shotgun, back there, Byron.” He loaded the balloon into the slingshot, drew it back and let it fly into the night sky. I didn’t hear it land, but the effect on the pursuers in the hallway was almost instantaneous. An inhuman shriek split the cool night air giving me a chill.

Evan turned back to me and smiled. “It’s a water balloon full of pig’s blood! This stuff drives’em NUTS!” He was laughing quietly as he launched another balloon into the darkness of night. As the second balloon landed, I could understand why it had such a profound effect. The smell was terrific! It was almost as good as human blood! It made the burning worse. My body started to shake.

In an instant I had clamped my hand over my nose and mouth; doing the best I could to hold my breath while running down the hall to the bathroom. John understood instantly what was happening. “Oh crap! Evan, close the window. Quick!” Their voices drifted down the hallway to the bathroom, but were punctuated by the sound of the window slamming shut. I allowed a little bit of air to infiltrate my lungs and was happy when the intensity of the burning in my chest stabilized.

After a few moments in the bathroom calming the burning fire in me I opened the door and stepped back into the hallway. Greeting me on the other side of the door, however, was not my old fun-loving frat family, but instead a solitary Evan with his shotgun at the ready. His face was white as ash and, more importantly, so was the knuckle on his trigger finger. He was ready to unload another round of shot at me.

I stopped dead in my tracks, but stood my ground. I knew that if I had tried to speak first there was a chance that I could startle him, which would unleash hot lead death upon me. I could see John standing behind him. “Evan,” John said, “it’s all right, buddy. He’s okay. Byron is not going to hurt anyone.”

Evan was shaking violently. I continued to hold my tongue. John, on the other hand, argued my case. “Evan, seriously! It’s Byron. You know, our brother… the same guy who sat next to you in physics last year. The guy who has been buying you drinks for the past few semesters because your parents cut you off.” John put a soft hand on Evan’s shoulder, “C’mon, Bro… put the gun down.”

“You’re dead,” was all that Evan said. His voice was barely a whisper and in it I could hear great sadness. If I ever had to choose which of my brothers I was closest with, I would have said that it was Evan. We had a strange bond that neither of us could understand. It was always as if we weren’t just Frat brothers, but real brothers as well.

“Yes, Evan,” I said as calmly as I could, “I am. I don’t know what happened, or why I’m still walking around, but given everything I’ve been through since I woke up in this hell I have to agree that yes, I am dead. But, I am not going to hurt you. I’m not a mindless killing machine, or a monster, I’m just me – Byron.”

Evan lowered the gun a little and then pointed it toward the floor. He backed out of the hallway being sure not to expose his back to me. I knew that it would take a while to gain his trust. But, it was a hopeful sign that he at least seemed willing to try.

John waved me back into the front room where we had congregated before they started launching blood-filled balloons into the night. Within a couple minutes we had all gotten ourselves comfortable and were sitting around the walls of the room facing each other. Pam sat directly beneath the windows with John sitting opposite her; and, I sat opposite of Evan who kept the shotgun resting across his lap. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to give that up easily. It was his safety net – the only measure of control he could have over such a terrible situation.

“So,” John began, “who wants to start?” He looked around to each one of us. Nobody was clamoring to have first bid at explaining their stories. Instead, it looked like everyone was staring at me. Apparently, they wanted me to be the first to go.

What could I say? How was I to proceed? I didn’t know much of anything about the present situation. I was probably more clueless than the rest of them – especially since I had been sealed inside a body bag in a morgue until a few hours ago.

“Well,” I began, “I guess the big thing I’d like to know is: what happened?” I figured that starting it off with a question and inviting a dialogue with everyone was better than just soliloquizing my short and unbelievable tale.

I had figured that John would be the one to start, but it was actually Evan who spoke first. He didn’t once look up from his shotgun as he spoke; his finger tracing the trigger guard repeatedly. “The last time I saw you, you were dead. Before that, I last saw you walking out of the campus pub to return to your dorm. Your roommate Cole called me the next morning when he had returned to campus to tell me that there was something wrong. He didn’t know what to do – if he should call the campus police or not; which he ultimately did when you sat up and started talking to him.” I could hear Evan’s voice cracking in spite of his best efforts to hide any emotions welling within him. He was hurt and confused – not knowing just what to think.

Evan continued, “Cole thought you had fallen out of bed and broken your neck. He was hysterical. He thought you were dead! He told me there was blood everywhere – like you had been attacked by a meat grinder. Your neck was bent at a strange angle. But then you tried to get up! According to what he told me after the police had left, you collapsed and he couldn’t bring you back around.

“Cole said that when the police and paramedics showed up you were pronounced dead on the spot. They inventoried your wounds and found that you had, actually, broken your neck and had a vicious bite on your leg. Cole said that one of the paramedics was concerned about that the most because the teeth marks looked human!”

After a brief pause Evan continued, “about two days later, all hell broke loose on campus. There were attacks being reported daily, sometimes in broad daylight. Byron, there were students dying. It got worse fast, and by the time that the police in the surrounding towns responded it was too late! Zombies had taken over the region.”

Evan sighed. “Tim and I met up on campus. We made our way over here to John’s apartment. But, a day later the local health department came here to quarantine most of the building. So, since most of the building was closed off we decided to take possession of the two apartments down from John’s and create a sanctuary for ourselves where we could hide from the beasts. Tim, as you remember, was involved in the school theater as a way of picking up girls and used some of his skills to create Zombie costumes for all of us.” Evan smiled, “the costumes were so convincing that they could even fool the creatures.”

“Except,” John interrupted, “if one of us gets a cut or something then their sense of smell takes over and we’re next on the menu. Just like what hap-”

Evan continued talking right over John, “anyways! We have also been experimenting with the zombies. You know, trying to find their weaknesses and ways of luring them away. They’re attracted to the smell of blood, that we know, so during a couple of our raids over the last few days we have been stocking up on animal blood. Don’t even ask how we’re getting it,” he said with a laugh, “just like for our hazing rituals, it’s a ‘don’t ask – don’t tell’ type of thing!”

It was good to see that Evan was starting to ease up a little bit. He stopped his story there and I waited a few moments before interjecting myself into the conversation again. “So, where’s Tim?” I asked. John and Evan both looked away from me and then away from each other.

Even if I hadn’t known them as long as I had, I would have known that this was not a good sign. “What happened?” I asked hesitantly.

John spoke up first this time, but didn’t turn to face me. “He’s out there somewhere. Probably tearing someone to pieces! We had gone on a raid together, he and I, and got separated. I was stockpiling blood and weapons, he was trying to get some food. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but when it came time to meet up he never showed. Despite Tim’s usual ‘Timness’ he was dependable and usually did what he said he would. I tried to go out and look for him, but I didn’t know which way he’d gone. In fact, I almost got turned into a flesh-eating beastie myself and only narrowly escaped! I decided to head for the sanctuary and hoped that he would meet up with us there. That was about three days ago now, and he hasn’t been back since.”

I watched John as he relayed the story of what happened to Tim. He seemed a little bit off to me while talking. Maybe it was that what’d happened had a profound effect on him. Or maybe it was something entirely different. I couldn’t tell. But, all I did know is that he just didn’t seem right as he told the story. I was sure that he knew more than he was telling. He was also probably just trying to edit the details so that Evan didn’t go ‘off the reservation’ with fear.

John turned to Pam and asked, “now, what about your story? How did you get dragged into this whole thing?”

How had Pam gotten involved in this whole sordid affair of walking undead? That was the question that John had asked. However, in my mind, the answer to that question was quite obvious – she had been, like the rest of us, an unfortunate victim. Or, maybe an unfortunate survivor? I didn’t know which one would be more appropriate. But, in either case, I had thought the better question would have been: how did you come to join us?

I looked at Pam with expectation hoping beyond hope that she answered my unspoken question instead of John’s. Luckily, I did not have long to wait before she began her tale.

“I know that it’s only been a little over a week since this whole thing started,” she said, “but, I feel like it’s been an eternity. All of this madness! I remember hearing about the first couple of attacks – there were the freshmen a few weeks ago, and then there were the stories around campus that Byron had been bitten. And then, all of a sudden, WHAM! There were five-ten-fifty attacks a day.

There was a slight tremble to her voice as she recalled, “people were afraid to leave their dorms, or to go to their classes. Then the school went ahead and cancelled classes for ‘health reasons.’ But, I guess that you guys already know all this; except you, Byron – this all happened after you’d died.” She looked down after she’d said that and then with a sense of seeming shame added, “sorry.”

I waved it away dismissively. After all, it was the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it was to hear.

“So,” she continued, “with the school not teaching classes, and everyone being afraid to leave their dorms things got a little crazy. And then the robo-calls came from the campus police telling us that we were not to leave our dorms under any circumstances and that we were not to admit any visitors unless they were Emergency Management workers. But, the calls never told us what was happening.” She sighed and hung her head.

“As would be expected,” she pepped back up, “chaos set in. I mean, everyone was getting on everyone else’s nerves. I think it was Cabin Fever setting in. For most of the week we all ended up staying in the dorm. But then things started to get deteriorate: the cable stopped working, we lost power, and ultimately we lost our heat. Finally, something went wrong with the phones. Without power nobody could charge their cell phones. We’d lost our touch with the outside world. We had no idea what was going on anymore. It was as if the whole world had just disappeared from around us.

“We decided that someone had to go out and see if we could get in touch with a cop or something. So, I volunteered to go. I left the dorm this morning – well, I guess yesterday morning now – and at first it seemed like I was the only person left on earth. However, it wasn’t long until I heard this ear piercing shriek and saw several people running at me. I wasn’t sure what was going on. But, as they came closer and I saw the blood caked to their clothing, I knew that I didn’t want to wait around long enough to find out.

“I ran! I ran like I have never run before in my life. The people chasing me were tireless; they just kept coming. I didn’t know what to do! So, I ducked into a nearby building hoping they would run by.

“I was lucky, they did! They ran right by! I’m sure you could imagine my relief! But, this was short-lived as the building that I had decided to duck into was riddled with undead. It was under quarantine and I had hoped that the inhabitants were actually dead. But, instead, the rooms were sealed from the outside and I could hear their residents moving about inside.

“They were still alive in there! Or, so I thought.”

Pam hung her head and took a deep, calming breath before continuing. “I made the mistake of knocking on one of the doors. The knock was met with a similar shriek to that which I had earlier heard outside and which had caused me to run from the creatures. The single voice soon became a chorus as creatures in other apartments answered in response. The whole building was swarming with the damn things. And then they started pounding on the doors.

“I ran again! I didn’t care where I went – I had to get out of there fast. Eventually, I wound up at the police station; and, the rest is history.”

Pam concluded her discussion, but there were other questions I had that she hadn’t answered; questions that I figured the other two men wouldn’t know to ask.

“So, what happened to that Police officer?” I decided to ask her.

She suddenly crossed her arms and shifted uncomfortably. “What do you mean?” Her tone was defensive. I knew that she was trying to hide something.

“You know, the young officer with the sucking-chest wound dying in the vestibule of the Police station?” I reminded her. And then, it occurred to me. He looked very familiar…he was a student at our school! “Wait,” I said before she could say anything, “wasn’t he in our class?”

Pam’s face went pale. There was something definitely strange going on here. But, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. She was connected with that cop somehow. And, if I had to guess she had something to do with his death, as well!

As we all sat there waiting for her explanation Pam broke into tears. She lowered her face into her palms and drew her knees up to her chest.

Nobody moved. There were no conciliatory hugs, or comforting embraces. We all just sat and waited for her to calm herself down. After several minutes of sobbing, she eventually did.

“It was me,” she said in a voice so low that we almost didn’t hear it. “I did it.”

I was floored! Surely she must be mistaken – beating herself up for some unfortunate accident that had befallen the officer.

“Jim was in our class. We had gone on two dates since the beginning of the semester. But, he wanted it to be much more serious than it was. I didn’t. I was just happy with being able to have someone to meet up with on occasion, to go to the bar with to hang out, or to just chat with. He, however, apparently wanted much more. So, I broke it off.

“It was a mess. I had no idea at how attached he had become to me. I mean, we’d only had two dates! But, he kept calling and calling. So, I blocked his number.” She laughed nervously, “that’s when things went from messy to crazy!”

“He kept calling me from different phones. Police cruisers kept circling near my dorm and work. Then, I started getting dozens of unexplained parking tickets; the sick bastard even broke out my headlights and ticketed me for it.

“Of course, I couldn’t prove that he was the one who did it! And, even if I could, he was a cop. Who would listen to me? When I volunteered to go to the Police Station I didn’t figure that he would be there. And, even if he was, there would be other cops there as well.” She paused, the asked – almost rhetorically, “I should have been safe, right?”

“But, when I got there the place was locked up tight. I pounded on the door, the windows. I needed to get in. And then I heard that shriek again! That terrible shriek! I banged on the glass as hard as I could and screamed for help. They were coming!

“That’s when I saw Jim come to the door. He was panicked – his firearm was drawn and he was looking around to see who had been banging on the glass. I called out to him and he raised his gun at me. I didn’t have to be a psychologist to see that he was shell-shocked. Something had happened and he was scared.

“It took several moments for him to recognize me and realize that I was actually talking to him. Once he saw it was me he unlocked the door and let me in and locked the door again.” She stopped. I could see that her body trembled harder the more she spoke. I opened my mouth to tell her that she didn’t need to continue, but she cut me off before a sound left me.

“That was when he explained that they were all dead – all of them. All of the other police officers had been out on calls – none of them had returned; he was the only one left at the station. His job was to try and make contact with other agencies for assistance. However, he explained, after trying the
County Sheriff, the State Police, and the National Guard it was clear they were on their own. The entire State of New Jersey had been put under a permanent quarantine issued by the President of the United States. The U.S. Military was to declare martial law and to establish a perimeter. He told me that there were checkpoints set up at all of the state’s major crossings border crossings.” Her voice grew more excited as she explained the situation, and with a crescendo she announced that, “nobody was allowed to enter New Jersey and anyone attempting to exit was to be killed on site unless their physical condition could be cleared by the Federal Center for Disease Control!”

Her voice was low and despairing when she again continued, “we sat together in silence for a while and I just lost it! I started crying. He hugged me and pulled me in close to him. After everything I had just been through, even though he was a bit of a creep, it was nice to have someone comforting and compassionate. But, then he grabbed my face in his hand and began kissing me.

“I was stunned! I didn’t know what to do at first, then I pushed him away and slapped him hard across the face. I mean, I couldn’t believe the creep would try to molest me at a time like that. But, that’s when it got even worse…

She started to cry again. I could see where her story was going and cringed at the thought of the ordeal she must have been through. It took her several short moments to compose herself before she continued.

“He tried to force himself on me.” Her voice was shaking as much as her body was. “I pushed him away, but he kept grabbing at me. He was so much stronger than me and he just kept coming on. I scratched his face hard, digging my nails as deep as they would go. But, he just wouldn’t stop. In fact, I think the pain made him, you know, try harder; like it excited him, or something.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before continuing. “As I tried to scramble away from him he shoved me face-first onto the floor and dragged me back toward him. As I clawed around looking for something to grab onto, some kind of safety-net, I felt my hand come across a pocket knife.

“It was folded, so I quickly flipped it open while he tried to turn me onto my back. In his rush he never saw the knife in my hand. He tried to pin my arms down, but I wriggled one out of his grasp and took the opportunity.” She lowered her face into her knees. She couldn’t look anyone in the eye and obviously didn’t want to think about us looking upon her. With a muffled voice she said, “I stabbed him in the chest; drove the knife in all the way to the handle.”

The muffled voice continued to explain, “he rolled off me and pushed himself away. I couldn’t believe the look in his eyes. It was fear, he was afraid of me. It was like my stabbing him had woken him up from some bizarre dream and into the clutches of death itself. He managed to get himself across the room and up against one of the walls before his strength gave out.”

At this point Pam lost the remaining composure she’d been stitching together and broke down into tears.

I couldn’t blame her for defending herself. From what she’d explained the guy was crazy and as difficult as it may have been or would be for her to come to grips with, I felt that she did the right thing. Strangely, it made me glad to see that she was much stronger than I had previously thought her to be.

As we all sat there in silence Pam reached into her pants pocket and removed a wood-handled folding knife with a roughly five-inch long blade. She dropped it on the floor in front of her and I could see the blood caked to it. Dried blood.

I coughed. Evan tensed, his hands jerking to the shotgun. It was up against his shoulder in a flash and again I found myself staring down the business end. As I looked around I could see that every eye in the room was focused on me.