Apocalypse: chapter Seven
#1 of Apocalypse #1
Apocalypse: Chapter Seven
As always I jerked awake and grabbed my pistol scanning the room for any movement. Just as I started to relax I felt a cold hand grip my shoulder and fangs sink into my neck. It was strange I could feel it all but the pain seemed distant. I put the barrel to the zombies head and pulled the trigger. I could hear it skull crack and its brain splatter against the far wall.
I stumbled out of bed and over to the wall flipping the lights on. As I turned around I was horrified to see that it was Jess laying dead on the floor. Her eyes were glossy and she had several bite marks on her. Seeing her dead made me furious. I sprinted out of and down the hall I ran strait into another walking corpse as I rounded a corner.
"Aw fuck it I'm already infected." I grabbed the zombie and spun it around sinking my teeth into the back of its neck. I felt my jaw closing around bone and yanked my head back pulling several vertebra with me. The zombie collapsed onto the floor, no longer able to control its body.
I spat it spine out hitting it's muzzle. "Not so tasty when it happens to you eh?"
I ran off through the building searching for the prisoners. I slid to a halt by their cell door, it was standing wide open and the cell was empty. One of the trucks started downstairs. I ran to the nearest window and jumped through it rolling as I landed on the lawn outside. The five men we had captured were in the stryker about to drive off.
I felt a sudden surge of pain spread through my body. I collapsed on the ground gasping for air. Everything went dark. I came too laying on the lawn with one of the soldiers standing over me.
I grabbed his leg and yanked it out from under him as I stood up. I heard him scream in pain and when I looked over I was still holding his leg but he was laying on the grounding holding his bloody nub. I swung his leg hitting him in the head. His skull exploded spraying gore across the grass.
It was strange everything seemed to be moving really slow. I watched as the chunks of flesh flew through the air. I walked over to the stryker and grabbed onto the edge about to pull myself up. I was surprised when the metal yielded to my grip. I could hear the soldiers inside babling about something in a panicked tone.
I reached down and grabbed a spot on the frame peeling the metal aside so I could see into the vehicle. One of the occupants thrust a rifle out and fired an entire mag into my chest. I looked down and noticed a bit of blood flowing front. I reached in and grabbed him by the throat pulling him out. I threw him onto the ground snarling and watching as he crumpled against the pavement.
Just as I was reaching back down I heard a soft voice echo to me. "Red....red...HEY."
I jerked awake back in my bed with Jess standing over me.
"You were making some weird noises you okay?"
"Yeah...fine. Just a bad dream. I'm going to go check on the prisoners, don't wait up."
I walked down the hallway heading strait for our makeshift cell. I threw open the door grabbed the nearest soldier dragging him out and locking the door behind me. I dragged him out onto the grabbing a chair and some rope along the way. I tied him to the chair and watched him for a moment as he groggily tried to take in his surrounding.
"You speak any English?"
"No...No English." He said spitting at me.
I looked him over carefully, he was a weasel or maybe a ferret. I ran one of my claws down his cheek just hard enough to break the skin. "You sure about that?"
"No English!"
I walked back inside and grabbed a toolbox and a blowtorch. I set it down a few feet away from his chair and pulled out a pair of pliers. Walking back over to him I carefully took one of his claws in the pliers. He looked up at me with fear in his eye, and started shaking his head slowly. I yanked the pliers away viciously tearing his claw free.
He screamed in agony. "F Fuck...you American."
"Ah so you do speak some English. Why are you here?"
He spat at me and leaned back into the chair. I walked back to the toolbox and grabbed a hammer and a long rusty nail. I held the nail over his left paw and lifted the hammer over it.
"P please no."
"Then tell me what you know!."
I slammed the hammer down driving the nail through his paw and into the arm of the chair. He screamed again yelling something in Chinese. I grabbed a screw driver from the toolbox and held the end under the flame of the blowtorch. He started to struggle against the ropes as he realized what I was about to do.
"So what do you know?"
"Nothing. I know nothing! Please stop this."
I dragged the red hot screw driver over his chest. He screamed again louder this time as I prolonged his pain by slowly dragging it in a winding pattern over his chest. He gasped for air as I pulled it away.
"FINE! WE DID IT! To make it easier to take over."
"You did what exactly?"
"Dropped the Z bombs, we killed the civilians. We didn't know it would kill so many. It was supposed to cause isolated incidents that would occupy your armed forces, not kill everyone without a gun and most of the people who did."
"How far did it spread?"
"The last report my commanding officer got said it had spread from the Rockies to the east coast. We were also told that there were small outbreaks in Europe."
"How's your invasion going?"
"We took over most of California but your military dug in and stopped us before we could leave the state. They are managing to hold their ground despite being hammered from the front and swarmed from the back."
"Know anything else that I should?"
"No I swear that's everything! I SWEAR ON MY LIFE!"
"I like your choice of words." I pulled my pistol out and shot him in the head. After that I untied him and dragged his body to the front gate and leaned it against the perimeter wall. I walked back inside and managed to find a pen and paper in an office. I wrote down everything he had told me and titled the paper interrogation #1. I left it sitting in the kitchen area were everyone would see it.
I grabbed my .308 and my spaz 12 and headed into our storage room. I grabbed a bag and filled it with enough ammo and food for the day along with one of the radios we had found. I opened the gate just enough to pass through and dragged the body with me. After closing the gate I dragged the body another block away before ditching it.
I kept my shotgun ready and headed for a six story building about a mile away. It was odd walking through the abandoned streets. I was careful not to make any noise as I walked. I managed to make it to the roof of the building without running into any zombies. I leaned my shotgun against the wall at the edge of the roof taking out my rifle as I did.
I slowing scanned the surrounding building and streets. As I looked across the face of an office building several blocks away I saw what I was looking for. A lone zombie was pounding at the heavy wooden door endlessly. As I looked closer I realized his arms had been broken in sever places from banging on the door for so long.
I assumed he had been there since the outbreak. Locked in an office as his coworkers fled the city. I took careful aim and pulled the trigger. I watched in satisfaction as the bullet tore through his skull. He fell limply to the ground. Watched the area for a while longer to see if the noise had attracted any undead attention.
A few moments later a small swarm of zombies had emerged from the surrounding buildings and was head for my position and the office building. I took aim and one by one took out most of them. Only about six were left but they were too close to the bottom of the building to get with the rifle.
I slung it across my back and grabbed my shotgun making sure it was fully loaded before heading back to the stairs. I sprinted down the stairs and shoved the emergency exit door open. I started running towards the firehouse but noticed a growing wall of infected as the front gate. I ran into the store across the street and barricaded the doors and windows.
I headed up to the second floor and surveyed the situation from a window. The firehouse was completely surrounded but the wall was tall and thick enough to hold them off with ease. I fished around in my bag a bit and pulled out my radio flicking it over to the frequency we had all agreed on.
"Hey you guys on yet?"
"Yeah man were the hell have you been?" Jake said after a moment of silence.
"Went out to have some fun, you guys have any idea about how to get rid of the swarm around the wall?"
"Well we have a few M67s but we don't want to damage the walls."
"Great Ill lure them out a bit and you blow their fucking heads off."
"Sounds good we'll be out in a minute."
I set up my rifle and waited, looking over the zombies I figured there must be at least fifty of them. "If this doesn't work I'm fucked." I thought choosing what zombie I would take out first.
Jake, Adam, and Ace cam outside and waited for my signal with grenades at the ready. I walked up to the roof and began firing into the crowd of zombies. I put a full clip into the crowd just to get their attention. Once I had it they all turned in unison and looked up at me before shambling strait toward the front door. Once they were far enough away from the wall I held down the button on the radio and yelled "NOW!" They threw their grenades in unison and they landed perfectly in the crowd. I ducked and waited a second before feeling the blast shake the building. I looked over the edge of the building and realized we had made a terrible mistake.
The grenades had done what they were designed to do. Most of the zombies within five meters of the grenades no longer had legs and a few had even been hit in the head with shrapnel and died. The majority hadn't been scratched.
"FUCK! It didn't work grab some rifles and help me clear a path to the gate. I'm going to run for it." I said into the radio.
"You fucking crazy man?"
"No but I don't see another option."
A minute later I saw them put a few ladders against the wall and climb up firing into the crowd from above. I slung my rifle and grabbed my shotgun heading to the top of the stairs. A shambler was waiting for me, it lunged at me from around the corner. I showed my barrel into its gaping maw and pulled the trigger blowing the back of it head off.
I looked down and saw several more zombies ascending the stairs. I ran to the back of the building and hopped onto the fire escape. Before I started down I grabbed a grenade from my pack and pulled the pin throwing it into the stairwell. "How bout a parting gift instead of a final meal?"
I slid down the ladder and hopped over the railing onto the ground. I ran around to the front of the building and saw Adam pulling the gate open while Ace and Jake fired into the growing crowd. More and more zombies were being attracted by the gunfire. I sprinted towards them firing the rest of my shells into the group before running through the gate closely followed by the others. They slammed the gate shut and locked it in place.
"Well looks like we might have a problem."