| "Rotten Meat" The Return of Cold Flesh Written by Nick Thomson AKA MinionZombie "King of the Undead" Copyright � April 2002 Safe Water City, a week later, and the dead are beginning to take a strong hold. The City hospital has been over run and now stands as a terrorist-style stand off between the living outside and the dead inside. The police station, like the High School, is now a chaotic medical emergency makeshift hospital. Both buildings are bulging with the massive intake of injured residents of the city and the suburban outskirts, particularly that of Green Close. The city streets are a scene of chaos, a free-for-all without any control, no police, just savagery and looting gone mad. All this chaos, all this madness, everything is controlled from one building, the tallest skyscraper in all of Safe Water, the Laurence and Bell financial building. A week before everything was fine, now the entire expanse of Safe Water has descended into utter mayhem. The living fight the dead whom are growing stronger every day that passes by. The Safe Water City hospital, probably one of the most important buildings and institutions required in a time of horror such as this. The dead had taken it over in a matter of hours, bursting from the morgue in the basement all the way through the building, devouring and infected countless numbers of innocent people who lay in beds, who were being operated on or who were there just doing their job. Police officers surrounded the grounds, the windows and doors on the ground floors sealed and barricaded off from the outside world in a vain attempt to contain the disease until the army could arrive to dispose of the problem. But it wasn't just the hospital that was giving rise to the undead; the high school's basement was slowly growing weaker under the pressure of the dead that moaned longingly throughout their holding space. Even the police station was now host to numerous counts of zombification, all cases locked away in the cells, in these times, criminals were let loose on the streets so that the dead could take their place. This is why the streets were being run ragged with violence and rioting and it was only six in the morning. "How long do you think we can keep holding this?" asked one officer standing outside the hospital. "As long as we have to, we can't afford the consequences if those things get out of there. We'd have a massacre on our hands. We gotta keep this place airtight until the army guys get here to wipe 'em out," replied another officer who stood by his squad car, munching on a donut from the refreshment truck a hundred yards away. "What if they break out?" "God forbid that happens, son, God forbid!" the senior officer on site replied as he sipped on his cooling coffee. "But what if they do, Sir?" "If they do, we gotta get them doors sealed again and take down every one of those sons a bitches before they get further than ten feet!" "Roger that Sir," continued the donut-munching officer. "How long you two been here anyway?" asked the senior officer in charge as he took another sip of his coffee. "Since the beginning, we've been sleeping in our car for a week now in shifts." "That so?" "Yes Sir, since the start of it all," added the young rookie who stood amongst his superior donut eaters and coffee drinkers. "Good work men, I'm glad there's guys like you on my force. Don't worry, those army guys will be here soon, then maybe you can go home," finished the senior officer before walking away, coffee in hand, handgun holstered by his side. The dead were creeping around inside the hospital as if they owned the place, which for the time being, they certainly did. Their screams and moans echoed throughout the entire structure, their pungent scent filtering through the rooms, operating theatres all the way back to their alpha position, the morgue where, after being near ripped to shreds, the morgue assistant lay twitching on the floor. He had been reanimated, but his muscles were destroyed and his brain was smashed completely, he was like a vegetable, only just a zombified one. The living were wiped out within the hospital in a matter of hours, the longest that someone lasted was for around a day by hiding in the elevator shafts. But eventually he had to brave an escape attempt. He never made it past the elevator doors. They had been waiting for him for hours on end. He was dead before he knew it and he was up and walking again in mere moments. The police force had dwindled throughout the week. Raids on houses refusing to give up their dead, arrests of looters and criminals born in this madness alike were made, the crime rate having risen some five hundred percent in three days after the initial outbreak. To help them out, men were drafted in from all forces in the vicinity of Safe Water. Men and women alike flooded into the city and the majority of which still guarded the weakening points, such as the hospital, past the first week, but the numbers killed within a couple of days was ridiculous. In total, the equivalent of an entire station was wiped out. They needed the army fast. "Yes Sir, will do!" replied an officer to the commanding chief at the hospital. "Good man, brief them quick, the army will be here shortly." The army was to arrive soon, but not soon enough. The situation was way past breaking point, and this is what scared the residents of Safe Water. If they dead had not yet broken free when they were clearly strong enough in numbers, what would it be like when they finally did break loose? * * * The sun was now high above all and everything; it was nine in the morning. Their call into action had come through just twenty-four hours beforehand; they had to mobilise fast, and most didn't even know what they were getting into until they were on the trucks and rolling. Colonel Havers was overseeing the day's operations and sat high and mighty in the first truck of the convoy that stretched to several vehicles in length. A Company was to be the first inside the hospital, then it was B Company and so on. Although they didn't say it to one another, everybody had a bad feeling about A Company, even Havers. B Company was made up of ten men, like the other companies in the convoy, they were all veterans of such situations, or so they thought. Jones, Viliers, Smith, Ridley, Stevens, Murdock, Peppard, Castle, Cocheck and Ford made up the company. They had known each other for years and always made it through a tough spot alive, but not necessarily unscratched. Every single man had taken a few bullets, blasts and scrapes in their time and they were the hardest company in their regiment. They were admired. "So what's the mission we got this time?" asked Jones. "Some containment shit up in Safe Water City," replied Viliers. "Containment? Fuck that, we're here for fighting, not mopping up somebody else's shit." "That's the situation though, or so we've all been told," added Peppard. "Hey Hannibal, what do you think is going on up there in Safe Water anyhow?" asked Cocheck who was one of many who nicknamed Peppard as "Hannibal" after the A-Team character. "I figure there's more to this than we've been told. There's been rumours and shit flying all over the air waves and I've overheard some things the officers have been saying about something big going down in this neck of the woods. Nobody knows exactly what, but it's big." "Big huh? Well we can take it on no matter what it is, am I right?" roared Cocheck proudly. "Settle down Cocheck, you keep that attitude up and you'll be going home in a black bag, ya hear?" said Jones to keep the men's minds straight on the task at hand. "Yes Sir, whatever you say Sir," laughed Cocheck as he gave a chewed up salute to his comrade. The team roared into a momentary laugh which soon died away and they were again left in silence as the trucks bounced along the road, the wind blowing through the camouflage sheeting under which they all sat. The trucks in front and behind growling much like their truck. They were a solid wall of tattooed metal grumbling along the highway as they turned off the freeway and up the slip road heading towards Safe Water City. "Not long now boys, we'll be there in no time," buzzed a voice over the radio. Each truck had a radio to keep in contact with everyone else, but more importantly the Colonel up front. As they moved, if there were mission updates, they'd be briefed before coming to their destination so no time would be wasted. But as yet, nothing new had come through. "Check your watches boys, it's nine-thirty by mine so make sure yours are the same. We�ll be in Safe Water by ten, sit tight boys," finished Colonel Havers before he buzzed out and the trucks went quiet again. "Safe Water City huh? Better live up to its name is all I can say, interrupted my damn shit break for this one," muttered Murdock. "Maybe you should try and eat more bananas Murdock, get your guts in gear for the army. No man and no operation waits around for you to finish shitting," laughed Peppard sternly. Again the truck burst into laughter only to die down quickly once more. Shortly after quarter to ten, the radio buzzed on again. "Alright lads, we're nearly there, get your shit wired. I expect everyone of you mean fuckers to be ready to leap off this truck before we get to our destination." Without muttering anything or wasting time, every man in every truck complied fast and began readying their weapons, loading magazines and getting their backpacks fastened. They didn't know how long they'd be in Safe Water, so they were ordered to bring everything they had. As far as they figured, they'd be there a long time judging by all the rumours and hushed conversation between officers over the Safe Water Situation as it was called. Finally, the sign denoting "You are entering Safe Water City" came into view, the trucks roaring past it over the speed limit. "Okay ladies," buzzed the radio once more. "This is it, two minutes till drop off. Stay in your companies, follow your orders and be careful. The city's in a bit of a state at the moment so say the cops in the thick of it. So watch your shit." The radio buzzed out again, it was approaching ten in the morning, the beautiful and gloriously sunny morning. Shortly after entering the city, the convoy entered the centre of it all, the sight of rioting citizens suddenly a common sight, police running around in blind panic and finally the sight of the hospital, bursting at the seams with as far as the army knew for the time being, terrorists or cult members screaming the apocalypse. They were right for one thing, the apocalypse was screaming loud and proud from every ajar window above the ground floor and the sight of tattered people glowered out onto the living in the streets. "What the fuck is going on here?" asked Jones as he looked out the open back of the truck. "God damn. This is serious shit man," gasped Castle as he readied his rifle in shock. "Men, this could well be the end of the line," grumbled Havers as he charged out of his truck and confronted all his troops. "Sir, what the hell is going on here?" asked Peppard. "That's exactly it soldier." It was hell on earth warmed up and pissed off as they saw it. * * * The police station wasn't much better than the hospital. As a makeshift hospital there were patients and surviving doctors running around like headless chickens as more cases flooded in through the doors, some already dead, next to the influx of a few new doctors from the next town over. It was sheer chaos and the remaining officers within the building were trying to keep order as well as work with the command centre over at Laurence and Bell Finances. Suddenly, another case burst through the door, spitting blood onto the floor, gargling their own flesh as the wound in their throat dribbling blood onto his once white shirt. "Help me!" gargled the man as he collapsed to his knees. "Jesus! Get this man some help, now!" screamed McClane. The nearest officers, Nance, Edwards and Jackson came running and were quick about taking hold of the new victim in their arms before carrying him into what was once their cafeteria and what was now an emergency hospital. As they burst into the large room, the noise of screaming and dying men and women hit them, as did the smell of stale blood and coated most of the floor. The roar echoed around the tiled walls as yet another patient was brought in. "Another one?" said the doctor on sight in disbelief. "Afraid so doctor, this one's on his last legs," replied McClane. "Set him down over there then," said the doctor as he pointed to an empty, yet blood soaked table. "I'll get to him in a minute." The officers then escaped the horror of the room and walked back out into the reception area, retrieving their shotguns from the front desk, which was the centre of control for the Captain, Captain Cage. "How's that one doing?" asked Cage. "Not looking good Sir, he's coughing up his own insides in there!" replied McClane, a large lump of gagging forming in his throat that he was quick to subdue. The noise was just as bad in the reception as it was in the makeshift emergency ward. There were wondering and helpless residents of the area who were perfectly fine, just shocked with it all having been thrown out of their residencies that were now chemically threatening as the raiding squads said. There were a few officers standing, exhausted and wavering, drinking cups of water to refresh themselves at least a little after a shift that was running for as long as it had to run. The holding cells were full to capacity with looters and petty criminals who had been arrested earlier on, but most were now being crammed together four or more to a tiny cell so that the now empty cells could act as barred coffins for the dead. Suddenly, the doors to the makeshift emergency ward burst open and the doctor in charge came tumbling out. "Hey, you guys!" he pointed to the group who had just brought in the new case. "That guy's dead, get him back in the cells now." The men looked on in disbelief; people were dropping like flies before their eyes. This was like nothing they had seen before; it was pure and unrelenting madness. The officers followed their orders and once again entered the chaotic makeshift hospital. Proceeding over to the table they had just rested the man down on, they quickly picked him back up, a limb to each of the four men, and whisked him out of the cafeteria, back into the reception. "Jesus H Christ," gasped Cage as he saw the mangled form being carried through to the cells. "There's more where that came from Sir," replied McClane as he looked over to the entrance. Another two wounded people came stumbling through the door, once again dripping or puking blood onto the floor, screaming for mercy. "Somebody get that mess cleaned up!" roared the Captain. The holding cells were bursting at the seams, the prisoners screaming to be let go or just screaming mindless obscenities at the passing officers who carried yet another corpse. "You sure you guys aren't just killing them yourself?" taunted one criminal. "Settle down faggot, or you'll be getting a face full of my shotgun here," replied McClane, his shotgun hanging from his shoulder on string, like all the others. It was a simple way to keep them on one's person all the time, just in case something happened when in a situation such as they were, carrying the dead. Coming to the second, nearly full cell for the dead, the men unlocked the door and placed the body inside. The stench of death was thick, but as long as they didn't have to live with it, they didn't mind. The previous cell for bodies was packed; Nance could have sworn he saw the pile wiggling, from somewhere underneath perhaps, but he dismissed it as just his lack of sleep playing up. This second cell was growing fuller by the day and it was becoming home to the worst cases of death. All victims here were brand new over the past twenty-four hours, all suffering major injuries, by the looks of it all were bites. "Let's lock it up," ordered McClane as he backed out of the cell, the others close behind. "Wait a minute!" shouted Jackson. "What?" "There!" pointed Jackson in fear; one of the corpses was twitching. "They always do that," said McClane dismissively. "No way man! It's moving!" Sure enough, the body was moving and before their very own eyes the cadaver sat upright from its bed of bodies, glaring at the officers in the doorway to the cell. Hissing and showing it's bloody gap of what was once his mouth, the corpse stood slowly and began to stagger forwards. "Wha the fuck!" shouted McClane in horror. Suddenly, another corpse began to move and so did another, then another and another. All of them suddenly reactivating at nearly the same time. "What's going on?" screamed Jackson. "Shotguns! Now!" roared Edwards, alerting the screaming attention of the prisoners. The others picking up on the idea and whipped their loaded shotguns into their air, aiming them at the corpses, shouting their usual lines such as "freeze". It wasn't working, the bodies weren't responding and as Nance, who was just inside the cell tried to free his shotgun's string loop from his mangle of belt, gun and ammunition pockets, one of the corpses approached him, lunged at him and sunk its teeth into him. Screaming in agony, Nance fell backwards as his blood erupted into the air. He was still trying to clutch for his shotgun when another zombie joined the struggle. The others looked on in paralysed terror. "Close the fucking door!" order Nance. "Close the fucking door!" Reluctantly yet swiftly, McClane complied and slammed the cell door shut, locking the reanimated corpses inside with Nance who managed to grip onto his shotgun, lifting it into the air. Firing off a shot, he blasted a zombie's face clean off, leaving the blood gushing body to fall backwards, its brains still dribbling down the concrete wall. Another bite to his neck enraged Nance further; this was pure, yet in vain, survivalism. Blasting another shot into the air, he wounded a zombie and sent it flying backwards. Screaming and screaming, Nance finally passed out, his shotgun dropping to the ground. "Fire!" ordered McClane. The three officers standing around the scene of horror aimed their shotguns through the bars and fired. The sound was deafening and the shots sent flesh, bone, brains and blood rocketing into the air, painting the walls like a room of Ed Gein's house. The prisoners went wild, like it was a scene from an action movie, happening right in front of their eyes. They screamed, roared, hollered and thumped their feet on the floor, enjoying the whole thing. Finally, after all men were empty on their guns, they stepped back, all the corpses were dead, Nance was gone and every still corpse was blasted again to make sure. As they walked away in shock, the noticed the first cell twitching and moving in the shafts of light coming from the lamp and window of the small box. "What the hell is going on here?" gasped Edwards. "Let's get the fuck outta here!" replied McClane. The men ran from the holding cells and back out into the reception. "What the hell's going on back there?" roared the Captain. "They're coming back Sir, they're coming back!" boomed McClane as the clock above him on the wall behind wound over to eleven in the beautiful morning. * * * Much like the police station, the Safe Water High School was another makeshift hospital and rescue centre. All those in the vicinity flocked there having been thrown out of their homes, abandoned amongst chaos, wounded or carrying the wounded in. The building was a mixture of old and new buildings. Paintings by students adorned the walls, as did framed posters with cheesy encouraging slogans written on them such as "Your mind is like a parachute - it works best when it's open". Years of wear and tear could easily be seen throughout the maze of rooms and corridors, peeling areas of paint, scratches on doors and chewing gum splattered all over seemingly every inch of the carpet running through the main corridor. The main hall was the main emergency ward for serious cases while the surrounding classrooms were for either minor bites or injuries and those just needing somewhere to stay safe. The canteen was open and working around the clock to serve food and drink to those needing it, the staff working there and around the many rooms at the same time. Anybody who was fit for it was to be used for any job. Suzy, Peter and Josh were such people, young, fit and strong. They had all been visiting their friends in Safe Water before the outbreak and they were now stuck. Had this not happened, they would have been at home, not in the middle of hell on earth. Their jobs varied from medical staff assistants to canteen operators to councilors to morgue assistants. The latter being the more frequent chore. "Get some people in here now to clear these bodies away!" roared the doctor in charge. As soon as his roar finished echoing around the cavernous hall, one of the four sets of doors dotted around the room clattered open and the trio came running in from a shift in the canteen. "Get those bodies down to the cellar now!" order the doctor. He wasn't telling anybody on a mass scale, as it would cause hysteria, but there were a few he had informed the dead were coming back to life. He didn't know why and he didn't even know if he believed it, all he knew was that he had seen it happen. So it had to be true. Suzy, Peter and Josh were three of the ignorant to the fact. Grabbing a trolley each on which a dead person lay mangled and twisted, their innards still poking out through surgical incisions, the trio wheeled the carts of the dead as they called them, out of the hall and down the corridor. The living or the minor wounded lined the walls of the corridors, looking on in terror or disbelief or just total numbness as to what was going on. "What the hell is going on here?" asked Suzy. "Don't ask me, I ain't got a clue what's going on here," replied Peter. "I figure it's some serious shit, this is big. This is like war sized!" added Josh. "War? Do you think it's war?" asked Peter. "Could be and most probably is. Try and explain all these dead people, all this secrecy and all these army guys flying past on the freeway out there." "So if it's war, who are we fighting?" asked Peter as he narrowly averted collision with a stray patient. "Dunno, Russians?" laughed Josh. "That's your explanation for everything!" replied Suzy. "It's always the damned Russians isn't it?" "Well, it is this time I reckon! Gotta be, them damned nutters and their nuclear weapons." "Do the words hopelessly insane mean anything to you?" asked Suzy. "Everything in the world babe!" smirked Josh as they neared the final corner before the makeshift morgue, otherwise known as the cellar. The door was large, bolted and heavy. Peter had to open it up everytime while Josh and Suzy stood by and waiting for it to open. Immediately after the door swung open, creaking all the way like a growling lion, Josh would go down first followed by Suzy and then Peter into the dark and dingy depths. The stairs had been covered with planks of wood nailed together to form a crude slipway so that the trolleys could be taken down into and taken out of the basement. The darkness was illuminated by a few sets of strip lights that hung awkwardly from the blackened and moldy ceiling, drips of condensation falling like rain onto the slippery floor. At the far end of the cellar there was a large and groaning furnace. It was inside the furnace that the doctor had ordered the bodies to be burnt immediately. The only trouble was that it was both too full and too weak to burn the bodies fast enough. Therefore there was a stockpile of limp bodies piled up disgracefully beside the raging and insanely hot fire. The smell was awful and everytime they went down the trio would hoist their T-shirt collars over their noses. It didn't work too well, but it was better than nothing until they could get some supplies in from the army. They were supposed to be stocked the day before last, but surprise, surprise, in a time of crisis the system shuts down and they're the ones left out in the cold. "Put these ones over on the pile," said Josh. "We can't just keep piling these bodies up, somebody's gotta talk to the doc about this," replied Suzy as she left Josh and Peter to pick the three extra bodies off the trolleys, throwing them onto the floor, guts spilling out across the floor and other twisted forms. "Well we would, if he wasn't so busy cutting everybody up left right and centre!" said Peter in frustration. None of them had gotten any sleep in at least a day. It was past one in the afternoon and the sun was getting brighter, heating everything up, and making even the walls of the cellar sweat. "This ain't no good, we gotta get these bodies burnt if the insane babbling of the doc is anything to go by! We gotta!" shouted Suzy as Josh and Peter began to push their trolleys back towards the stairwell. Suddenly, the pile of dead stacked in the corner twitched and near fell apart. "Shit!" screamed Suzy. "What?" jumped Josh and Peter. "What is it?" "The pile! The pile just moved!" "Bodies twitch when they're dead like that, it's normal, come on. We've probably got more of the dead to wheel down here. I can't stand the smell down here," muttered Josh as he continued to push his trolley up the steep incline of the slipway stairwell. Then, like a vision of horror, several of the bodies on top rolled off the stack and onto the floor, clattering down with that dull thud of cold flesh hitting concrete. In a sudden burst, one of the corpses began to rise. Suzy screamed as she saw the eyes open, staring right through her with vicious intent. "Holy shit!" yelled Peter before he grabbed hold of Suzy, pushing her back and out of the way. "What the fuck is going on here?" screamed Suzy. The body continued to go about standing and slowly as it straightened its back, the monster began to lumber forwards. As it walked, its gaping wounds oozed and pulsated while its hands became outstretched, like its arms, crippled and clawing the air. Gushing onto the floor suddenly, the monster's stomach burst outwards under the lackluster stitching up job performed by one of the few, battling surgeons in the main hall. This walking corpse had been near torn apart when it was a living human, but now it was a shell of what once was. "Get back!" roared Peter as he glanced around the cellar, looking for a weapon. "Stay back buddy or I'll fucking bring you down!" The corpse began to pick up the pace; groaning and growling as another body began to rise, just like in the police station. It was then that Peter saw a steel bar near him on the floor. He ducked down to pick it up, but before he could stand up to the fight, the feeling of cold fleshed hands around his neck sent chills bombarding his spine. "Get off me fucker!" he yelled as he twisted on his feet in his squatted position. As Josh and Suzy stood by and watched the unbelievable, Peter flopped over on his back under the weight of his falling attacker. Flailing the steel pipe around in the horror of it all, Peter cracked the zombie across the back of the head. The force was so strong that the skull nearly imploded. Suddenly, the zombie's face went dead again and the cadaver flopped over Peter as if it were a loving wife, exhausted from a day's work. "Get this fucking thing off me!" roared Peter as the second reanimated corpse lunged onto the floor. Suddenly, it tore into Peter's flesh with vigor, snapping Josh and Suzy out of their trance. They leapt into the fight, just as another corpse began to reanimate without their knowledge. The fight was brief and bloody. The humans lost to the dead who then sat as good as free in the dark recesses of the cellar, chewing on the warm flesh of the recently deceased trio. The noise of the enraged high school flooding throughout the building and down like a burst river into the dank basement where the dead were now reanimating, the fire of the furnace slowly beginning to recede, just bones now remaining inside to slather over. * * * "Alright lads, it's getting on a bit. It's three in the afternoon. Better get loaded!" boomed Colonel Havers as he stood aloft on a bench outside the Safe Water City hospital. "What's in there Sir?" asked one young recruit of A Company. "Nothing you guys can't handle. Whatever you see in there, don't be phased. You are on a kill on sight mission to clear out the building. This city needs this hospital intact, so no Rambo stuff," replied Havers. "A Company will, as you all know if you read the briefing, be going in first. Followed by B Company, the clean out will go according to the brief, by the word." The several companies stood fast in front of Havers, A Company the most anxious as they were first in. "Okay lads, A Company, get your shit wired and get round to the rear access now!" roared Havers. "Sir!" they shouted in unison. "Go get those fuckers boys!" "Sir?" shouted Jones of B Company. "What is it now Jones?" "Should you be instructing them as loud as you are, Sir? Surely the enemy can hear us?" "Don't worry lad, these guys inside can't hear shit, or know what it'd mean anyway." "Sir!" replied Jones. "Right, stand by lads, A Company could be needing assistance, so keep your guard. E Company! You're on watch around the building. I want a man on every corner and a man between each of those men! I want every door covered! You got that?" "Sir yes sir!" boomed E Company as they spread out to surround the building. "For the rest of you lot, stand by!" finished Havers before he walked back to his truck where his radio was that kept in touch with every man he had under him. "It must be foreigners then," said Jones as his B Company split from the others, preparing themselves to go in next. At the rear of the hospital there was a large service entrance. Buried at the bottom of a slope of going into the ground, A Company lined themselves along the concrete pathway outside the door. The doors were large, heavy and were previously blocked off, but A Company had removed the barricade and just had to unlock the door before entering. "Alright lads, go, go, go!" buzzed Havers over A Company's radios. Each man had a job to do and plans of the building had been given out to study. In theory they knew exactly what they were doing. The doors were unlocked and quickly slid open, two men covering the entrance as it opened. There was nothing in sight down the service corridor, it was clear. Signaling, one man entered and had the others follow behind. Using a two by two cover formation, the men clattered into the corridor and proceeded towards the stairwell. "One team there, one team there!" pointed the leader to the two stairwells at the left and right of the end of the service corridor. Following orders, the men burst into the stairwells and proceeded to charge upwards into the ground floor having entered the building from the basement. They were unstoppable in their formation and determination. Then they reached the ground floor doors from the stairwell. In unison, the two teams of A Company burst into the main floor of the level. Immediately, the enemy was in sight everywhere. They were unarmed and merely walked through the showers of bullets spraying by the attacking company. The radios buzzed with confusion, terror and rage as the bullets clattered around the walls. The noise was deafening inside and was just as loud from the outside. Windows cracked as bullets ricocheted off metal doors and paneling, men screamed as they were surrounded. Suddenly, it hit them; these were not average terrorists or guerilla groups. This was something they'd never seen before. "Man down! Man down!" came a sudden and frenzied buzz over the radio. "Kill them all!" boomed Havers in disbelief. He'd lost one of his men. "Man down! Man down!" came the call again. "Attack them! Kill 'em all!" screamed Havers. Again, another man was taken down; A Company was dropping like flies. Havers burst from his seat in his truck and glared at B Company. "B Company! Go, go, go! Through the front!" Without questioning, having heard the chaos inside, B Company blew apart the barricade of the front door, pushing through the double automatic doors with stealth and eager revenge for loss of comrades. Jones was leading the pack with Viliers right behind him. The others followed as the sound of bullets firing wildly got louder and louder. Suddenly, a blood splattered figure appeared at the end of the corridor. It wasn't one of A Company. "Freeze!" roared Jones. His command was not honoured and so quickly, Jones opened fire, blasting the figure apart with a shower of controlled bursts during the figures attempted walk towards them. "Go, go, go!" ordered Jones. "Two by two cover!" The men organised themselves into their formation and charged the building. It was idiocy, but going cautiously would have been idiocy too. The sight of what seemed to be the impossible, bullet-riddled enemies still walking, A Company being eaten alive, blood running thick on the floor. It was chaos. The bullets started firing up again as blood hit the walls, holes broke out everywhere and the undead continued their feast. Jones went down quickly up front with Viliers, Smith and Ridley followed soon after. Struggling with their falling comrades over their shoulders, Stevens, Murdock, Castle and Ford staggered back towards the front entrance. But as they ran and fired in unison, horror struck their eyes as more of the enemy burst from rooms all around them. Their screams filled the air, their fallen comrades who were bitten all over collapsing to the ground as they did too. Crawling for their lives on the floor thick with blood, they fired about aimlessly in blind panic as Cocheck and Peppard tried to drag two or three men each with them, gripping onto their backpack straps in one hand while trying to shoot their rifles with their free hand. Their progress was slow and the dead who shambled towards them kept coming, only a few falling in the heat of the battle through brain splattering head shots. It was like a scene from the most horrific war film known to man, the sheer courage and heroics displayed could have won them all Oscars as their blood ran thick across the floor. It was not too long before Cocheck and Peppard, the two surviving members of B Company to this moment, fell in battle amidst the screams and shots of their comrades who followed suit, giving up when they could go on no more, when they were finally dead. As calls of terror came buzzing over the radio, Havers broke into fear and a cold sweat. Again, he leapt from his truck. "C Company, D Company! Go, go, go!" he ordered. Storming them with as many men as possible was his solution. The men complied like robots and charged inside the building. Luckily they got past the ground floor, but proceeding onto the first floor proved the situation was worse. Zombies were everywhere, no man knew what they were dealing with and Havers just sat outside in his truck, hearing the bullets, hearing the screams over the radio, the terror filled "evac" orders and the failure of escape all too common by five o'clock. "Call for back up! Call for more back up! We need more men!" roared Havers, his body quivering with the terror of war, but mainly the shock of the massacre inside. "Block the doors E Company!" * * * Safe Water City was turning into a war zone. The hospital was under siege, the police station was breaking at the seams with the reanimating dead in the cells, the high school was about to burst and the city streets were swamped with looters and criminals alike. Shop windows were being smashed, alarms were roaring out into the air amidst bullets and smoke. Some looted for food and those supplies deemed necessary to survival, others just looted as if there was no tomorrow. Stealing televisions, radios, leather sofas or anything of any high value was dragged out of the burning stores and into the burning streets before being driven away in stolen vans and trucks. Law and order did not exist anymore, it was utter chaos and the police couldn't control it, the best they could do was to send out occasional parties to go and arrest or shoot, as it frequently turned out to be, any stray criminals. McClane, Edwards, Marsh and Jackson were sent out into the streets by Captain Cage, their orders were simple. Bring as many back alive, but shoot to kill should they resist. Cage was beginning to take the law into his own hands, forming his own army in his head, the sights and sounds of death all around him, he had grown accustomed to them surprisingly quickly. Taking one of the few riot vans with them, the quartet of officers were let loose on the streets downtown, right in the centre of the chaos, to see what they could do. Cage figured if they went out enough times and did away with enough criminals, he might be able to solve the problem given some time. But looting and other crimes were the least of his problems. The van was large, coated in steel plating and growled viciously as the team screamed out of the parking garage underneath the precinct and onto the streets, the gate closing quickly behind them as they left. The police station was its own little fortress now, lined with guns and ammo, teeth grinding police officers and home to a king's ransom of criminals and live specimens of the new plague just waiting to be let loose from the holding cells. "What are we gonna do this time then?" asked Jackson. "Same thing we always do, shoot, beat or run these fuckers down," replied Edwards. "What? That's always your answer! Don't you want to save some people?" said Marsh sharply. "Why the fuck should we? They shoot at us, we shoot at them. They beat us up, we beat them down. They charge at us, we run them down! It's simple!" "But�" "I don't wanna hear it, Marsh! These people out on the streets are just committing any criminal act they so wish, looting, arson, rape, murder, you name it, and they're doing it! Why should they get away with it?" finished Edwards. "Man's gotta point, Marsh," said McClane softly as he screamed the tossing and turning van through the relatively empty outer streets before proceeding towards downtown. "Got your guns ready?" "Hell yeah!" roared Edwards. "Check," said Jackson while Marsh sighed, reluctantly picking up his shotgun. They had rigged the van so act as a moving vehicle of death. It was basically indestructible. Having altered it three days prior, this was their first serious ride in it. The windows were replaced with steel plating, but with slits cut through so that they could fire out the sides and back. They had built a hatch in the roof so that one man could climb a makeshift ladder to fire from the top of the van. The wheels were covered by yet more steel plating and the windshield was similarly dressed with a thin strip running the width to see out of. It was like a tank and handled like one too, but it could still reach a good fifty miles per hour. In a matter of minutes on the empty streets, the team had arrived in downtown and the sights, sounds and smells of criminals running rampant was spread all over. Everywhere they looked they could see criminals looting, running rampages, killing each other off to obtain each other's ill gotten goods. The screams of women could be heard flooding from open or broken windows of previously swanky apartment buildings. The sound of smashing petrol bombs and the smell they carried flooded all around them, they had been spotted. "Time to go to work lads, lock and load," said McClane as he stamped his foot on the accelerator. "Shoot the fuckers." The engine roared as the van tore through the streets. Jackson and Edwards were merrily mowing down all they saw as they pitifully tried to flee with television sets bundled in their arms, they were like cockroaches. The carnage was awesome in scale, blood coated the walls of buildings and the streets smeared crimson as the armored van ripped a hole straight through the centre of hell on earth. They continued this rampage for over and hour before coming to a rest in an alleyway to take a breather from the chaos and destruction. They would have to return to the precinct soon as their ammunition was running low, their spirits failing slightly from the disgusting shows they had seen, the depths to which man could sink was horrid, and as they sat breathing in the smell of smoke in the air deeply, Marsh remained hunched over, looking out the slits in the armor plating, consuming the disgusting displays of men in a time of chaos. This was their nine to five job now; most of them were bankers or service providers several days ago, this was utter madness. Suddenly, the sound of a woman's screams could be heard over the top of all the other atrocities on the streets. Her pleads for help were getting nearer and caught Marsh's attention. As soon as he saw her terrified face and the grimace of the man chasing her, Marsh dropped to the van's floor on his knees and grabbed his shotgun, taking with him a belt of extra ammo. "Don't wait around for me," he said simply before kicking the back doors open. "Marsh! Wait!" shouted McClane. "What?" "Where the fuck are you going?" "I'm gonna go clean up for a while, gotta problem?" The others in the truck could see he was going insane living in this city, he had finally snapped just that moment. Shaking their heads in shocked unison, they let Marsh disappear into the streets. The screaming woman ran into the apartment building she had once called her safe and happy home, but now it was a breeding ground for all sorts of criminal activity, just like in all the other buildings throughout the city. She pleaded for help from drunk business men lying on the floor, previously decent men, she pleaded with closing elevator doors, the small box filled with cheap floozies and high teenagers, she pleaded until she reached her apartment, but in the terror of it all, she struggled with the keys, the sounds of her stalker getting louder and louder. She managed to get the door open, but as she leapt inside, the leathery hand of her stalker grabbed her by the shoulder, pushing her to the floor. As she screamed in fear, having only just failed to escape his clutches, the woman lay helpless on the floor as she was stripped down, held against her will. She screamed and pleaded, much like all the other poor victims in the building and in the city, but it was no use, the man battled with her until she gave up, she nearly fainted with the horror of it all. Suddenly, crashing through the door with shotgun ready, Marsh burst into the apartment. "Freeze!" he ordered. "What the fuck. Wait your turn buddy!" replied the grunting pig. "I said freeze fucker!" ordered Marsh again as he pumped the shotgun. "You're fucking dead!" grumbled the man as he leapt off the innocent and tired to charge at Marsh. Pulling the trigger, Marsh pumped a blast into the man's stomach. He flew off his feet and crashed onto the floor several feet back, cracking his head on the wood paneled floor. Marsh stepped up to him and aimed the shotgun sure and steady. "Any last requests?" "Yeah, bite me asshole!" said the near-dead rapist; coughing and spluttering blood across his own face. "Wrong answer fucker!" Marsh pointed the shotgun barrel a few inches away from the man's face before pulling the trigger. Like a watermelon blasted apart with fireworks, the man's head flooded across the floor, spattering blood across Marsh. His breaths were deep and unsteady, as his eyes stayed wide and crazed. "Thank you, thank you," gasped the bruised and naked women behind him. "Thank God for you!" She struggled to lie on her side, covering herself with both arms, tucking her legs in to make herself akin with a frightened hedgehog. "Thank you," she stuttered. Marsh turned around, his bloody face blank. The door open ahead of him, he could see the atrocities of a fallen city throughout the corridor. He quickly stepped over to the door and closed it. Falling against it, he slid down to the floor and let the shotgun go limp in his gore dripping hands as the clock on the wall opposite clocked over to six in the early evening, normally he'd be at home with his wife and kid, eating his dinner and listening to their stories of the day. He wept. * * * It was approaching seven o'clock when Captain Cage proceeded into the holding cells to check on the situation. The criminals locked up were angry and grabbing through the bars, just like the undead further down the small, bare-brick hallway. "I thought I told you sons a bitches to shut the fuck up!" he roared as he kicked the bars of the criminal's cell. Suddenly, one of them grabbed his left and pulled it through the bars. "Grab the fucker's keys!" shouted the man holding onto Captain Cage's leg. "What the fuck do you think you're doing asshole?" roared Cage as he reached for his sidearm. "Not so fast!" said one of the criminals as he thrust his arm out of the cell space and grabbed the Captain's arm. "Let me go you fucking assholes!" he screamed in anger. "Not a chance old timer," said another man as he tore the keys off Cage's belt before unlocking the door and stepping outside of the cell. "Come on boys." The men flooded out of the cell and into the reception, but what appeared to be the ring leader of the moment took hold of Cage and threw him into the cell. "See how you like it," he said before locking the cell and unlocking all the others. The precinct could rot in hell for all the man cared, he didn't care that he was adding to the problem by releasing two cell loads of the undead. He escaped the holding cell back room and ran into the reception. Just as he passed the main desk, the doors swung open ahead of him. It was McClane, Jackson and Edwards with shotguns ready. They had spotted several men flocking from the building, nailing one of them as he ran and they were now inside to wreak havoc. "Get on your knees you fucking asshole!" roared McClane, his shotgun raised high and proud towards the lone criminal's face. The trio began to step closer and closer, easing the lone man onto his knees, placing his arms behind his back and just as they were about to handcuff him, the doors to the holding cells burst open, the faces of a dozen or more previously dead patients flooded into the reception. "Oh shit," gasped McClane. In unison, they raised their shotguns and began to fire. It was hopeless. The high school was not any better off either. By somewhere nearing nine o'clock, the dead in the basement had finished feasting on Suzy, Peter and Josh and had climbed the stairs, flooded into the hallways and had begun attacking the living, slowly but surely recruiting more for their army. The battles were short and the strength of these corpses seemed to be growing and growing with every attack, every bite and every pint of blood that was split. It was utter chaos in the main hall, the patients and doctors alike fleeing for their lives, crushing the weakest whom lay helpless on the floor. In a short time the rest of the class rooms were invaded and flushed out almost systematically and before they knew what hit them, the living inside the building were dead, ripped open and fed upon, lying dead or hopelessly screaming in vain as the dead smashed through the entrance to the school, flooding onto the streets to grab anyone near, hunting them down and tearing them apart. Hell had frozen over and it was time for the dead to walk. As the dead began to walk the streets downtown, the dead were struggling with the barricades at the front and rear entrances to the hospital. E Company was alone now, posted all around the building with guns at the ready. The lights from inside the building and the street lamps outside illuminating the whole area, the ravenous faces of the undead and the terrified, unprepared features of E Company. As ten o'clock approached, sunken in darkness, the dead finally broke the barricades and came pouring onto the streets with their arms raised, bloody mouths open and their fingers clawing for the flesh that lay ahead of them. E Company was ordered to fire by Havers whose voice boomed over the megaphone he had been carrying with him constantly for the past several hours. He watched the dead spread across the hospital grounds and advance on E Company, a seemingly great number in ordinary circumstances dropping down like flies, their heads bursting open and walnuts, but the sheer number that plodded out and eventually attacked E Company was unseen, a terrible sight that Havers could barely watch. His eyes were transfixed on the slaughter and he muttered orders under his horrified breath. He remained in his commanding truck right to the very end. Having locked himself inside, the dead clawed for him as his face turned to doom. He had one bullet left and he knew whose it was. It was his. He trembled as he placed the gun in his mouth and before the dead broke through the glass, he pulled the trigger and sent the inside of his cranium splattering throughout the interior, his blood trickling down every surface, draining across the glass as it was smashed through, pouring off the dashboard and across the clock that flashed to ten o'clock. * * * Throughout the past week, the commanding members of the Safe Water City governing board lay in wait inside the top floors of the Laurence and Bell Financial building just outside downtown. Through the large expanses of glass that adorned the shell of the structure, the many men and women inside, most of whom were fleeing the terror and managed to get inside, viewed the chaos that ensued on the streets. The day was almost over, the eighth day of the onslaught was coming closer and closer as every tick of the second hand of the clocks around them staggered on and provided that much needed lowest hum of white noise. The surviving bodies wandered around the prefabricated floors like the undead in the concrete jungle below, their eyes blackened and worn much the same, their slouching figure in the shadows a cause for concern to those who awoke from their nightmares after catching a quick nap on top of their desks, the decorations of which long since scattered underneath. The mayor of the city and his main advisors and even bodyguards were high and mighty in the top two floors of the building, with the lower and lower governors of Safe Water in the floors directly below and finally many more remaining floors holding countless numbers of homeless families from Green Close and the surrounding suburban area. Most of these families had the head of the household working for Laurence and Bell, that was their ticket in. It was like a hierarchy diagram in History class brought to life, the King at the top with his councilors below and slowly flowing down towards the peasants. It was the feudal system re-enacted in a time of war, a war of the new era of man. Postmodernism had given birth to corruption, war on the streets and a new disease that spread faster than any plague mankind had faced before. The plague of medieval times was a mere dot in light of this latest disaster, this was the end. The bottom of the building was guarded by barricades and security guards armed with only a few weapons, not nearly enough to stop an invading army entering the building. It was past ten o'clock and the wails of the dead could slowly be heard converging on the city, swallowing all that lay in the path of the reanimated corpses of loved ones, friends and colleagues. "Holy mother of God," gasped the Mayor as he stood by his office window on the top floor of the building. "What is it Sir?" replied his personal bodyguard. "Those things, they're coming out of the hospital!" "What?" stuttered the bodyguard in disbelief. As if he was a hunting partner, the bodyguard approached the Mayor's side and took the binoculars he had been holding away so that he could take a look. Sure enough as he scanned the area some forty floors below them on the streets, he could see the hospital in the near distance ahead of them, the gray and twisted bodies of the undead spewing out like bats from hell. "Gimme those!" order the Mayor as he snatched the binoculars away again. The Mayor now paced over to the adjacent wall of glass and peered downtown towards the high school. Again, the similar sight of the undead flocking onto the streets could be seen, their wails filling the air. "My God! They're coming!" "What Sir?" "Those things, those creatures! They're spewing out of the hospital and the high school! They're flooding out of everywhere! It's like the moon's guiding them or some cultist shit!" "Sir, what about the police station? You said that was to be another makeshift outfit until the hospital was operational again didn't you?" "God damn," gasped the Mayor before he stepped over to his phone in the centre of his oversized desk. Jabbing the numbers for the precinct sharply, the Mayor waiting as the call was processed and the ringing tone rang out. The phone just rang and rang; there was no answer. In horror, the Mayor replaced the receiver slowly, his mouth as wide open as his eyes. "Tell everyone in the building we've gotta problem here!" The bodyguard complied and picked up the momentarily still phone to ring the lobby, alerting the guards. "We've gotta problem! They've breached defenses at the hospital and the high school and we think they've taken the precinct too! They're on the streets!" shouted the normally steely tempered bodyguard, but this was beginning to become too much for him. The guards reacted as any normal man or woman would do having discovered your demise was heading your way at that moment, blind panic. Running around as if headless chickens, the guards made final and futile attempts to make sure the barricades were strong enough and as they did so, the sight of at least one hundred undead souls shuffling from the hospital could be seen converging on the Laurence and Bell building. "They're here!" screamed one solitary man as he dashed for the slowly closing elevator doors behind which his fellow guards cowered. He squeezed through the closing gap and readied his gun like all the others, they were making their way as high up the building as they could go, cocking their guns like Rambo, but holding not even a splinter of his fearless nature. As the night wore on and midnight approached, the dead hammered relentlessly at the doors and glass of the ground floor. Having been there for over an hour, their droning united noise infiltrated the inside of the building. They flooded the reception, they flooded the elevators and they flooded the staircases, shuffling into the building one after the other as if forming an orderly, British cue. As midnight clocked over in unison throughout the building's hundreds and hundreds of clocks, the dead burst into the floors where the living hid in total terror. The Laurence and Bell Finances building was just another piece of stolen land the dead had overtaken. Safe Water City had been over run. |