Path of Destruction

Demetri and Rodya crawled along side the low wall, carefully placing their feet so as not to make any noise and keeping a steady hand on the Kalashnikovs slung across their necks. Demetri reached the end of the wall first and looked down the hillside at the large antiquated but still in service flak cannon below. Squinting he tried to make out the distant figures moving around the large multi barreled, vertically pointing cannon. Rodya nudged him and handed him a set of binoculars, which Demetri took with a silent nod.

Through the magnified view he could see three of the men rushing to one side of the gun and pointing out across the adjacent field. Panning across to see what they had spotted Demetri cursed as he watched a group of shambling undead making their way toward the gun post. Zooming out, he watched as two more men joined the three, bringing with them a collection of rifles that they passed out. Each man loaded his rifle, took aim and after a few seconds began firing at the oncoming undead.

The crackle of gunfire drifted up toward them, as Rodya leant back against the wall and lit a cigarette. “The poor bastards don’t know how to kill them” muttered Demetri as the zombies continued moving across the field and reached the low sandbag wall around the gun emplacement. Dragging itself over, the first one reached out and grabbed the closest soldier who, unlike the others, had not had the sense to back away. Ignoring the bullets that shredded its outstretched hand and arm the zombie fell onto the soldier, dragging him to the floor and tearing flesh and limbs apart.

As Demetri watched more of the undead poured over the wall, walking through the hail of bullets unimpeded toward the soldiers. In a desperate act, one of the defenders threw his rifle to the ground and ran to the firing seat of the large gun. With a metallic screech the barrels swung down, and rapidly rotated toward the zombies. Despite several being alongside the barrels and thus out of the firing line the soldier pulled the trigger and started firing. Demetri pulled the binoculars away and watched as the massive gun began to shred the adjacent field, churning turf apart, shredding zombies and splintering whole trees into shattered firewood as the massive explosive ‘Booms’ rolled across the small valley.

Rodya’s cigarette hung loose from his lips as he stared in disbelief at the destruction below him, and then, as something caught his eye, he nudged Demetri and pointed. One of the undead had walked around the gun, ignoring the fierce hand to hand battle of soldiers against zombies and proceeded to stumble up to the gunner. Reaching over the seat the zombie grabbed the soldiers jaw and pulled. Blood sprayed onto the gun and with another vicious pull the zombie dragged the soldier out of the seat, knocking a lever and setting the gun in motion.

Demetri and Rodya sat motionless as the gun began to rotate and lift, sending round after round into tree tops and then along the hillside. The two looked at the path of destruction rapidly making its way toward them and with unspoken panic, launched themselves down the hillside. As they ran Demetri looked to his side at the rapidly approaching destructive line and with a desperate roar, threw himself forward, knocking Rodya to the ground. As the two tumbled down the hillside, Demetri could hear the sound of whistling shells flying over his head and felt the thumping vibrations pounding through his chest. Mud, grass and smoke rolled over them and then, in an instance, it was gone.

Lying on the ground, bruised and battered the two looked up as the giant cannon stopped firing and its slow whirl came to a stop. For a moment nothing moved and then, with agonizing slowness, one of the soldiers, blood pouring from a gaping wound in his side and arm hanging at an impossible angle, stood up, spied the two lying on the hill and let out a low moan that drifted across the hillside toward them. As they watched several more stood up and joining the first, began to lurch toward them.

Demetri swore, tilted his neck until it gave a satisfying crack, picked up his rifle, turned toward Rodya and said “Time to get up comrade, we have work ahead”.

City Aflame

The flames were tearing through the city now, entire city blocks aflame, apartment towers and offices alike belching thick black smoke into the night sky. Brad wiped the soot away from his eyes and looked around the street, shotgun in his right hand, and gripping his left was his son.

“OK, follow me, if we can get to the bridge there’s a car rental place there” he said, moving away from the buildings doorway and out into the street. He had learned quickly over the last few hours to stay well away from the edge of the street.

As the first reports of infected had leaked out onto the local news Brad had paid it little attention. The first quarantined building was on the other side of town and nothing for the general population to worry about. Even as the fire had broken out within the building, captured on camera and beamed across the city, Brad had settled down on the couch with a beer and that mornings newspaper. He had only looked up at the TV when the first burning man had walked out of the building and attacked the nearest firefighter. He had sat there fixated as the walking pillar of fire crossed the street toward another firefighter, ignoring the gunshots and bullets thudding into it from the nearby police. He had watched in morbid fascination, as more human torches exited the building, unhurriedly walking toward the police who had begun to flee the scene or crossing the street, following the crowd of onlookers who had fled back into the opposite building.

The flames had quickly spread after that, matched only in speed by the spread of the infected across the city. Within hours the city was aflame, the streets were clogged with stationary cars, many alight and public transport had come to a complete halt. Brad and his son had gathered up a few supplies and headed out into the glowing night as they had watched the neighboring apartment building go up in flames. Brad shut his eyes and forced the memory from his mind, trying not to picture the figures struggling in the windows across the street, trying to fight back against the attackers that had poured through their apartment doors, seemingly unhurt by bullets and fire alike.

He stepped over another prone body, probably the twentieth jumper he had seen within the past hour and strode down the middle of the street toward the bridge. Approaching the giant structure he could see a blockade of police cars and SWAT vans across all six lanes of the bridges mouth. He waved as a bright spotlight was turned toward him and slowed his walk, holding his arms out away from his body and letting the shotgun dangle from his outstretched finger tips. As he slowly stepped forward the light suddenly swung away from him and lit up a number of people to Brads left. Turning to look at them his stomach turned to stone as the first one stumbled toward him, a female, whose left arm was completely missing and whose clothes and skin was charred and torn away in multiple places.

Panicking Brad pushed his son away from him toward the police line and took aim at the nightmarish figure bearing down on him. He leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The gun roared tearing a huge chunk of the attacker’s torso away. Still she kept coming at him. Brad pumped the shotgun and fired another round, this time hitting her squarely in the chest, knocking her back several paces before she began to lumber toward him. He pumped the gun again and fired another round, snapping her left knee in half and sending her spinning to the ground. Brad looked up as she began pulling herself toward him, to see another disfigured man lurching his way. He squealed, pumped the shotgun, aimed higher, pulled the trigger and watched as the top portion of the man’s skull shattered under the impact, sending a plume of blood and hair into the night air.

Brad stepped backward as the lifeless body crashed in a heap at his feet. With a lunge the crawling woman grabbed his leg, pulled in close and bit down hard on Brad’s boot. With a cry of pain Brad slammed the stock into the her head, ramming it into the hard pavement and leaving broken teeth protruding from his now bleeding foot. He reversed the shotgun, pumped it a final time and fired, point blank, at the base of her skull. The blast tore through the bone, mulching the brain and sent shrapnel in every direction as the buckshot hit the pavement. Brad screamed as hot fragments tore through his leg and already hurt foot.

Limping backwards he spotted more figures moving out of the shadows toward him. He turned and began to limp toward the police line and the silhouetted figure of his son, anxiously waiting for him. As he approached a heavily armed officer approached him “Sir, were you bitten?” he asked.

“Uhh, no, no its just shrapnel from the shotgun” Brad replied back, his voice tinged with fear and his mind racing at what would happen if they suspected he had been bitten.

“Alright, good” responded the officer, his attention already shifting to the oncoming group “Get over the bridge and find a paramedic, they should be able to help you out”

Brad nodded, grabbed his sons arm and began to make his way toward the bridge. As they made their way across they could hear the officer barking orders and gunshots ringing out as they opened fire on the onrushing group.

Half way across the bridge he turned to his son and pulled the small one round pistol from his sock “I want you to have this son. Don’t be afraid to use it, no matter what happens or who you need to use it on. No matter who it is, don’t hesitate. Do you understand?”

The young teenager looked up at his father as he took the pistol offered to him “Yes dad” he replied.

My Journey

Six months ago a group of them came to my house, killing indiscriminately. They took my sister.

I have thought about those few moments as I fought for my life every day since. Why did she attack, them when she could have run? Why did they not come back for me?

I awoke several days after the attack, covered in other people’s blood, dehydrated, with a massive bruise on the side of my head. It took me a week to recover.

I set out as soon as I had the strength, gathering up food, supplies and weapons while tracking them down like the animals they are.

Now I see them. There are more of them now, twenty five, maybe thirty. My sister is still with them!

People say you can’t bring someone back from being undead. But then they said you couldn’t bring someone back from the dead too.

I am going to kill them all, and when my sister sees me, she will come back to me, come back to life. She has too, I need her to.

If you find this, then I have failed. I am wearing a red sweater. Please find me and put me to rest.

Thank you.

What we should have done

In retrospect, we should have nuked the infected cities. Of course, the general scientific consensus was that it was a virus that could be contained. A lot of theories were thrown around as to how people were infected. Was it an airborne virus? Sexually transmitted? A handshake? Terrorists?

The first few victims were restrained and studied, while those who suffered injuries in their restrained were sent to hospital. Within a few days, hundreds of undead began to pour out into the surrounding areas.

It took weeks before we figured out how to actually kill them. Weeks were thousands died and rose again. By the time we had figured it out, it was too late. Financial institutions had collapsed, industry and distribution services had stopped across large areas of the globe. Within months the world went dark as civilization came to a standstill and fear, war and the dead stalked the globe.

There were some in the beginning who recognized it for what it was. Who called for us to quarantine and destroy. Who shouted for us to destroy whole cities so that the rest of us could live.

We ignored them.

We paid the price.

We should have used nukes from the start.

Listen to the details

“HaHa! Yeah! come on then, COME ON! Chaz, gimmie one of those bottles, I’m gonna light the fuckers on fire!”

Chaz looked at Barry “Are you sure Baz? Isn’t that like, murder or something?”

Chaz grabbed the bottle from him, and started to stuff an old rag into the top “Nah, they said it was OK on the news, they got no feeling or somethin. Anyway, cops are too busy up at the stadium, who gives a rats eh?”

Facing the two shuffling undead Chaz lit the rag and hurled the flaming bottle at them. It struck the first one directly in the face, shattering and engulfing them in flames.

“Yeah, burn you freaks! Burn!”

As the flames swirled around the two zombies, they continued their advance on the boys, arms outstretched jaws hanging open.

“Shit, why don’t they stop?” said Chaz, turning to Barry, who was no longer by his side. Turning Chaz looked around the alley, “Baz? Where you go mate? You’re not scared are ya?”. Reaching down he picked up his beer can and turned back to watch the bonfire. As he turned the first zombie had closed the gap to less than ten feet. Shocked, Chaz dropped his beer and turned to run, kicking into the gas can at his feet. As he stumbled and the zombies bore down on him the gas fumes ignited around him. The flames clung to his jacket and hair. Screaming he dropped to the ground, trying to put the flames out. As he rolled over he saw the first zombie, glass embedded face melting from the heat, reach out and grab his throat.

His shrill screams quickly stopped as the zombies tore into him.

Behind a trash can nearby Baz quietly wet himself and prayed they wouldn’t see him.

Zombie Combat Guide, From A to Z

When dealing with the zombie menace remember you’re A to Z’s:

• Just like the letter A, you should stay as far away from a zombie as you can
• Zombies will always move in a direct line toward their nearest object of interest. If this object of interest is your brain, try to place a large object between it and the zombie, such as a crate, car or building.
• Don’t be lonely, much as zombies like the company of other zombies, you should group together with other survivors, safety comes from numbers!
• Remember, taking Z’s will get you killed! Find a safe location and set a guard, because no one likes to wake up to a zombie eating their brains!
• A stands for Aim. Aim for the Brain! A direct shot to the brain will make the walking dead into plain old dead.
• H stands for Hand to Hand Combat and just as H stays away from Z and A, so should you!
• Lastly if you are bitten by a zombie remember you ABC’s
  • Acknowledge you are infected
  • Blow your brains out
  • Congratulate yourself on a job well done

Beach Landing

— Radio Transcript Starts —

-This is beach base 2, Normandy, Bunker 8. I repeat this is beach base 2, Normandy, Bunker 8. We have a confirmed bottom walker coming ashore; sniper squad has been dispatched-

2 minutes of radio silence

-This is beach base 2, if anyone’s listening we’ve got a major problem here, there must be at least a hundred coming ashore now-

-Seriously is anyone listening, I thought we were supposed to be using this to communicate! We need backup, they just keep coming from the sea, there must be thousands on the beach now. We haven’t heard anything from the sniper team, the bastards probably ran-

4 minutes of radio silence

-Beach base 2, is anyone out there?-

2 minutes of radio silence

-Oh shit! Oh shit! Shit! They’ve seen something, they’re starting to move up the beach, their coming straight for our bunker. Fuck, fuck, guys don’t make a sound-

30 seconds of radio silence

-I know, I know, it’s taped down now, no more static. Stay quiet guys, fuck there’s still more coming from the sea. Shhh shhh, don’t say anything, their outside!-

2 minutes of open radio silence

-The door! Block the door! NO NO, shoot it!

Gunshots

-Oh god, there all coming, shoot them! SHOOT THEM! If anyone is listening, please send help! No get off! NO-

Screams and fighting

28 minutes 14 seconds of open mic radio follow, with occasional moans and shuffling sounds audible
Audio feed cuts off abruptly

The sniper team reports all recon bases are overrun, with test subjects lasting on average 12 minutes from landfall

—This concludes field test 14c—

Little House on the Pier

The scout party returned to the barricade blocking the entrance to the pier, dragging a cart full of scrap metal.

“Ahoy” the leader called up to the barricade guards “You want to send someone down to help us haul this stuff inside?”

“Sure thing, there much activity out there?” the guard called back

“No, we found one crawler but otherwise its pretty quiet”

A short while later the gate swung open and two guards walked out, with rifles slung over their shoulders. As they brought the metal onto the pier, one of the fishermen at the far end of the pier started shouting and running back to the encampment at the middle of the pier.

“There’s a ship coming, there’s a ship coming!”

Scrap metal forgotten the pier residents all began to run toward the railings to see the sighted ship.

Over the next several minutes it came closer and closer, on an obvious course for the wharf from which the pier jutted out.

“It’s a cruise ship! Man that thing is huge, it must be what 80, 90 thousand tons?” said one of the watchers.

“Easily.” Replied another “Shouldn’t it be slowing down though?”

“Oh crap”

With that, the cruise ship, under full speed, glided along the right side of the pier, heading toward the shore. With a sickening crunch the bow began to plow into the rapidly rising sea bed. The scream of metal tore through the air and giant gashes began to appear along the side of the ship as it buckled from the impact. A massive iron girder punched out from the side of the vessel as it plowed onwards, spinning away from the ship, cutting through the pier like a knife through butter. On the pier the residents were running to the opposite side, throwing themselves to the waves below, several were crushed as the girder tore through the floor, snapping timber supports like twigs.

With a final shudder the cruise ship came to a halt, its engine still churning the water behind the beached ship. Looking at the destruction the pier dwellers watched as figures began to drop from the deck high above them and more stumble out of the torn hull. Lurching and groaning the undead began to make their way toward the survivors. As the undead poured through the now useless barricades the living gathered what weapons they had to hand and prepared to make their final stand.

The mist and the bridge

“Why won’t they stop?!”

“You know why, now come on! There’s a bridge up ahead, we might be able to lose them on the other side”

Grabbing her arm Jake pulled her along toward the bridge that stretched out into the mist. Behind them he could hear the groans as their pursuers continued their relentless chase.

As they reached the first support truss they passed a hand painted sign that read “All foot traffic keep left”.

“That looked new” said Alyx.

“Yeah maybe, lets just keep moving and worry about that later right?”

Moving out on to the bridge they could see rusted vehicles lined up on the left lane of the bridge. 30 feet later they came across another hand painted sign in the middle of a line, stretching from one side of the bridge to the other, “Dead on the right, living on the left”.

Jake kicked at the sign “What dumb ass put this here? Come on, I can see a building up ahead, lets get off of here and find a way to lose these bastards. Stay to the left my ass, its full of damn cars, idiots”

As he stepped out past the line a shot rang out, Jake jerked and collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from the right side of his head. Alyx took one more step and then fell to his side as a second shot rang out across the mist shrouded bridge.

On the second floor of the house, Bud reloaded his rifle while his son peered through the binoculars at the bridge, “Pa I’m not sure they were zombies!”

“Of course they were son, the signs are clear enough, now pass me another box of ammo, there’s some more coming up the clear side of the bridge, soon as they cross that line, their mine!”

Roof top view

Looking out from the top of the office block, the commander surveyed the troop placements on the street below and on the map pinned to the table in front of him. Two days ago they had got word of the disease outbreak and scattered reports of increased violence. Although no one was officially correlating the two together, Blake knew how to count. With the full effect of martial law in place, he had issued a city wide curfew, with movement strictly limited to emergencies only while the med teams began to sweep the buildings.

The radio crackled to life “Sir contact on 48^th street, residents breaking curfew, they look to be pretty badly injured. Apparently they got attacked by some crack head sir, he bit and lashed out at them, orders on how to proceed?”

Blake waved at the radio op guy who issued a med-evac unit out to the area, as he finished the orders a second squad reported in “Sir, 18^th street, I have civilians running down the street toward me, several wounded, others following behind them at a slower click.” The radio lapsed into silence, after a few seconds the soldier came back on the air “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, THEY AR…” the radio clicked off abruptly. Looking out over the building he could hear the sound of small arms fire drifting up from the 18^th street barricades and could see the muzzle flashes lighting up the street in the early evening dusk. Blake didn’t need to issue orders, the radio ops guy was trying to reach the combat crew, while a second dispatched a combat patrol to the area for additional intel and fire support. Blake swore softly and pulled his binoculars clear of their pouch as the med-evac chopper roared overhead. Who had they engaged? And what had caused the squad to open fire so rapidly on their fellow citizens?

Looking at the magnified scene he could see the darkened figures fighting hand to hand now. As he watched the dispatched patrol humvee came skidding up, as it did so the radio crackled to life as the driver came on the air “Jesus, targets sighted, this is bad, the barricade is smashed, got maybe ten targets in hand to hand with the squad, should we engage?” Before Blake could answer the driver came back on the air “More coming from the building! Hit ‘em with the 50 Cal” The roar of the humvee’s gun drowned out the rest of the radio and from his vantage point Blake could see the tracers ripping across the street.

Over the roar of the gun Blake could hear the driver yelling something over and over. “What’s he saying?” he asked the radio op. The op paused “I think he said it’s not working Sir”.

As the gun stopped firing, Blake could clearly hear the driver screaming “IT’S NOT WORKING! OH GOD, there’s more coming, send more troops, SEND MORE TROOPS!” Looking back at the scene Blake could clearly see more people pouring out of the barricades, surrounding buildings, the shapes all moving toward the Humvee which was now firing wildly at the advancing crowd of people.

Worried Blake barked an order to send more reinforcements, as he did so he looked out across the deserted streets and with a sickening feeling saw more people slowly moving out of the buildings and onto the street,, all heading toward the sound of gunfire. As he watched the crowds growing larger and shouted more orders for additional troops, Blake saw the Med Evac chopper head away from the city, he hoped that wherever they were going would be a better place than this one was turning out to be.