Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
More horns keep blasting and there is a growing collection of lights at the pavilion. I point my binoculars there and watch to see what is developing. There are dozens of men fully armed and in their gear, wielding spears and clubs, waiting for their orders. Either they’re going to retake the encampment, or they’re defending the main pavilion. Either effort seems vain. Those in charge are walking back and forth, waving their torches and shouting at their men while horns blast. They’re marshalling their counter offensive. Women and children are rushing past the fighters, trying to get to the safety of the southern half of the encampment. I know that my Zombie army probably isn’t going to make it. That counter offensive is going to hack through my army and I’m going to be left alone up here.
Suddenly, a swell of light, a whirlwind of brightness, fills the faces of the men I’m looking at, it whitewashes them, and I see them all recoil and cover their eyes from the burst of white. Lowering the binoculars, I see the last of the plume of fire and smoke rising up near the northwest entrance, just as debris and shrapnel rains from the sky. Flaming tires, and a blazing containers rain down upon the majority of the encampment, scattering the defenders as they flee for cover. I watch the leaders shouting and waving their torches, demanding that they stand their ground. It’s all over when burning men flee into the encampment, trying to douse the flames that are consuming them. I watch in horror as they flee for their lives before dropping and incinerating. All the while, the endless tide charges on. There are still hundreds of Zombies flooding the encampment, while those still in the camp are either burning or pushing onward toward the center, butchering and murdering anyone they come across.
It’s time for me to leave. I grab my pack and sling it over my shoulder before looking one last time at the madness below. Fuck them. Fuck them all. This is what they deserve and nothing less. All the women and children—some would call them innocent, but that’s irrelevant. They allowed madmen to take control of their city and they submitted to the fanatical few. This was the price they paid. At the end of the world, there are no more rules. It is a dog eat dog world now and the last one to topple over the edge into oblivion wins. As of right now, I intend to be the last man standing, at least as far as Atlanta is concerned.
Distant horns fill the air. The hotel is on fire and as I kick open the front doors, I’m greeted with the sight of the first patrol to fall to my legion of flesh-eating horrors. Their bloody bones and strewn guts are all that remains of them. Their bare skulls look at me with bits of flesh, sinew, and skin hanging from them as the rain continues to fall. I feel absolutely nothing for them but apathy and disdain. They got what they deserved. They got every last bit of justice that was coming for them. I hope that wherever the soul goes, Lindsay lets these bastards know that it was because of what they did to her that brought this down upon them, their families, and their society. I am the god damned angel of vengeance. Of death.
The building across the street is also on fire, a growing pyre as a symbol to the chaos that I’ve unleashed upon this city. There’s a certain pride that I’m taking in all of this. I brought Atlanta to its knees. It wasn’t some vile or horrid army that marched on Atlanta, like the one that had destroyed Detroit. No. It was just one very pissed off man with a score to settle. That makes me feel powerful, but I’m not losing my focus. I know how dangerous the situation is and as the horns continue to blast, I know that others are on their way. With my machete drawn, I make my way toward the northeast entrance to the compound. Several of the watchtowers to the west are on fire, as is most of the encampment. I know what needs to be done, I just don’t have much time.
If my luck holds, I’ll be able to make it to one of the military trucks before the camp is either retaken or the fires and Zombies take over the entire place. Once I have the truck, I need to make my way south, regardless of what’s chasing after me. If I’m really lucky, enough damage will have been done that it will cripple the zealots indefinitely. As for right now, I just need to keep moving. My window is rapidly shrinking, but I’ve still got some time.
The street is filled with death. Those few defenders that managed to hack down some of the Zombies did little enough damage to their numbers. I count maybe ten dead Zombies among the fanatics who easily lost fifty in the skirmish. Why would they not defend themselves more vigorously? I would have gone down swinging, killing as many as I could. Fuck their weird ideology. This was war. If they wanted to hug it out with God’s creatures, then why did they lock them up in houses and buildings, waiting for them to starve? Why not invite them among them, try to reason with them there?
No. They boarded up prisons for them and locked them away out of fear. It was terror that drove them to imprison their friends and family members. So I shouldn’t be surprised that they didn’t know what to do when their perfect, utopian system caved in on itself. God, I wish Lindsay was here to see all this. She would have taken a whole lot of delight in the irony of all of this. I’m not sure I do.
“They had to die,” is what she would have said, rationalizing it all. That was her way. She was a hard-headed person who stuck to herself most of the time. When we realized that we were trapped in here, instead of abandoning me, she stuck by me and I stuck by her. When the going got rough, she knew that it was us or them. Some evils you can’t skirt around. Some darkness just refuses to let you go.
Some of the cars have been knocked over where the Zombies got a little too reckless and overzealous in their tasks. There are gnawed-on corpses left as far as they got before the Zombies tackled them or bashed their heads in. This sort of violence makes me wonder just how much of their brains are still intact. After all, if someone locked me away just because I was sick, I’d have a problem or two with them, the kind of problems that would make me want to bash their skulls in.
I make my way around the corner of the wall and look upon the killing field of the entrance. Again, there are far more fanatics dead than there are Zombies. Many of these are shirtless or barely dressed at all. Their faces are ripped off, their chests caved in, and their guts ripped out. They lie where they fell, bites ripped out of their bare flesh as the rain keeps falling all around them. The few Zombies that are dead must have been the result of a few who gathered their wits before the end, realizing that all of this was just some stupid fantasy world, distracting from what was really happening all around them. Maybe they didn’t even know about the Zombies. Maybe they had special people to take care of them. Keep all that nasty business from the public eye. Either way, it came around to bite them in the ass. I grin at my own pun. There are a few Zombies lingering about, feeding on the dead like ravens pecking at road kill. They don’t even notice me.
I decide to leave them. They’re not interested in me. All they care about is eating the dead. Besides, there could be patrols returning and if there are still Zombies here to keep them busy, it’ll buy me some more time. I walk past one who looks up at me with her wide, animal eyes, staring at me, her eyes looking over me and around me before sniffing the air and turning back to her flesh. Maybe there is too much death around. Maybe they can only smell the blood and the meat. If that’s the case, then good. I may have more time than I originally planned.
The inside of the encampment is a mess. The Zombies just plowed through everything, without a single care in the world. They took down tents, knocked over torches, bonfires, campfires, and trashed everything that wasn’t edible. It would be worth the time, I’m sure, to rummage through all of this, but there’s no time. I need to make my way to where the supply trucks were. I look behind me. She’s still not there.
There’s still a lot of distance to travel. I need to get to Florida with this vehicle and whatever it has inside of it. From what I could see from the hotel, it had been full of supplies in the back. If it hasn’t been overrun or burned to the ground, then I should be in the general area, but I have to admit that everything is way more chaotic on the ground than it had looked from high above. I glance up and to the north where my hotel and my window sits. I’m trying to place where I’m at inside the camp, but it all looks like tents, corpses, and fire from where I am. Part of me wishes I’d drawn a map, but there was no time for that. I make my way deeper into the camp and listen as the horns keep blasting. They’re desperate. They need help.
I hear footsteps somewhere nearby and before I know it, there are shadows moving around the shifting environment of glowing firelight. I look back to where I came and I see the soaked zealots rushing to the entrance. There are maybe six or seven of them. It’s hard to tell as I dive for cover behind a pile of stacked coolers and a tipped over card table.
“Where the hell did they come from?” one of them is shouting, looking at the abattoir that makes up the entrance to the encampment. “Where did so many of them come from?”
“There are roaming packs of them,” another answers. “Could have migrated south in search of food.”
“Why didn’t the patrols spot them?” a voice close by snaps angrily. “Look at this mess! How did this happen?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” the second guy says. “The patrols should be getting back any minute now.”
“The whole place is fucking overrun, Dean,” the first guy growls.
“Shit! There’s a whole bunch of them!” another guy shrieks as he spots the Zombies feeding outside the entrance. I stay where I am, listening as they move into action. It doesn’t sound like much of a fight. These guys know what they’re doing. Whoever Dean is, he’s in control of this operation and he’s not respecting whatever laws or rules they once had. His men make short work of the Zombies. I listen as the Zombies shriek and snap before being hacked down and left in the streets where they were.
“We hold this entrance until the others arrive,” Dean declares. “Once we get enough men together, then we flank the bastards and we clear out the camp.”
“What about the Prophet?” a new voice nearby asks.
“Fuck the Prophet,” Dean answers. “This whole place is ruined. There’s going to be a power vacuum soon and I aim to be on top of that list. You hear me, boys? No more bible study. Once the Prophet’s dead, we’ll be calling the shots from now on.”
“But what about the others?” a man near the entrance asks.
“Fuck them.” Dean’s voice is cold and callous.
If they’re congregating around the entrance, then I need to keep moving. Creeping, I make my way toward the downed tent nearby and move in a low crouch until I’m behind another tent, and quickly make my way toward where I hope the supply trucks are waiting for me. If the patrols are near, then I’m almost out of time.
Rounding the corner, I’m met by a Zombie who looks at me, and unlike the others, isn’t willing to just let me pass. It’s a man, rather tall-looking and with eyes filled with the flickering light of the fires all around. Those eyes of his, they’re not filled with hunger or brainless anger, there’s something more sentient to him. He looks at me and there is nothing but rage inside those eyes. This one is not killing for the lust for flesh, but rather the lust for blood. I take a step back, gripping my machete tightly as he takes a step forward and roars, bellowing with all his might. I raise my machete and swing at him, missing him and getting the reward of a fist to my face. His punch knocks me to my knees and before I know it, he’s wrapping his hands about me and hurling me away. My machete flies free of my grasp and I watch helplessly as the towering Zombie approaches again, teeth bared and fists clenched.
I roll as he raises his fist and pummels it into the mud next to my head, splattering me in frigid muck, but I’m still conscious. Reaching up with my bladed stump, I catch his side and rip violently to try and get the monster away from me. The creature recoils, gripping his side, but not before he grabs my wrist and slams my stump into the mud again and again. I scream in pain, afraid that he’s tearing my still-healing wound. I punch at him, catching him in the cheekbone and feeling the full impact of the blow running through my knuckles, splitting the flesh of both his cheek and my hand. I want to scream, but there’s too much of a risk in that. So I bite down, grinding my teeth and punch again. The creature barely reacts to the blows from my fist. He keeps glaring at me as he chokes my wrist. I struggle under his weight, trying to get my knees up, my feet, my shins, anything. There’s nothing I can do. Shit, I’m going to die here when those psychopaths are just a few yards away and could help me.
Desperately I grab for my back-up machete, but it’s too hard to pull out of the sheath. The creature is pinning my leg down with his body weight and I’m stuck struggling to get an upper hand. The monster looks at me with a face contorted with his full, unbridled wrath. The creature sees what I’m trying to do and doesn’t give me any chance. He presses down his knee into my thigh and this time I scream against the pain. It’s too much. I freed this bastard and this is how he’s repaying me? I try to head butt his shoulder, but I can’t reach. He swats at me with his elbow and catches me in the nose. I see white for a moment and I know that he’s broken my nose. I try for the creature again, but he swats at me with his elbow again.
This time, I bite down on his arm with my full strength. I can taste the putrid, rancid flavor of his skin and press down more. I bite as hard as I can, sinking my teeth into the flesh of his arm. There is suddenly a warm rush of liquid on my tongue, filling my mouth and I sink my teeth in deeper. I can hear it roaring in pain, but my own panicked heart beating louder and louder drowns everything else out. This thing is going to kill me if I don’t stop it. So I keep biting.
Suddenly, my face is free, bashed in by the brutal punch of my attacker, forcing my head away from the monster’s arm, taking with it a chunk of flesh that I can feel rolling around in my mouth like a big, warm Swedish meatball. I want to spit it out, but I’m back in the muck, looking up at my attacker who roars at me with his putrid, black mouth before punching me again. I lay there, in the mud, watching the world flicker between darkness and a blurred, fiery reality that I no longer recognize.
“Get up, Charlie,” I can hear her saying. It’s in the darkness and I’m not sure who it is at first. I’m not sure if it’s Lindsay or if it’s Tiffany. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that someone is calling to me. I open my eyes, the monster is walking away from me. I can see men in white and flashes of red. Darkness. They’re standing over me, looking at me as they talk amongst themselves. The monster is gone, dead probably. I don’t know. I don’t care anymore. Darkness, shadows, and loss. Their backs are now turned to me, walking away. They are abandoning me. Why shouldn’t they? Everything has. Everyone has. I am not one to be saved.
I find myself awake, alive—again. I don’t know how I keep surviving. I don’t know how I keep enduring all of this. The world reeks of smoke and blood and burning flesh. I’m disgusted that I now live in a world where I can distinguish the smell of something burning and burning flesh, but here I lie. I’m looking up at the slate sky, wondering how much longer I’m going to have to endure these sorts of events. How many times am I going to be thrown into the jaws of death, only to have him spit me back out, saving me for a later meal? It seems as if I am greatly burdened with the curse of survival. Living isn’t enjoyable, so long as you’re the only one left to live.
Pushing myself up in the mud, I look around and immediately see my attacker, dead in the mud only a few feet away. They did a number on him and I find myself more inclined to feel sorry for him than all the others around me who are dead. In fact, I feel nothing if not hatred for the others around me who have perished in my actions. Deserving one’s fate makes inflicting evil so much easier. I stand up and look around at the world around me, smoldering and bleeding. This is my world. This is my Atlanta. I feel pride in all the destruction I have created and I hope to whatever demented god they prayed to that this will be the last of them.