He Would Never Tell You That

Dec. 3 - Sydney

There was nowhere for anyone to go. He was afraid, but he would never tell you that. The city was in a complete chaos and there was absolutely nowhere for anyone to go. Rumors were that they had armed guards shooting anyone trying to leave, but he knew that wasn’t true. He knew this because he had gone to the edge of the city the day before, just to see if he could. Part of him really just wanted to get shot and get it over with, but he would never tell you that.

Where the disease started was the biggest question. Some blamed the United States, some blamed China, and a few radicals were even taking a stand to blame Australia. They said that it started in the Outback, and that’s why it went so long without being reported. He knew it was all ridiculous, that it didn’t even matter where it started. All that mattered was the world was falling apart and he felt trapped. He felt incredibly trapped, but he would never tell you that.

It was five in the morning when he heard the radio crackle the report. He wondered how long it had been playing. There was an actual plan being put together. He remembered all the days and plans prior to this. At first, the police and paramedics were able to handle the problems. There was occasional vagrant showing symptoms, or a few people in some random townhouse would be infected. All were small events, but there was a momentum he saw behind it. When getting the morning paper, people would mention how well things were being handled. He didn’t believe a word of it, but he would never tell you that. To him, the whole situation was destined to be the end. People showing signs of death, and then suddenly showing massive aggression and a high tolerance to pain . . . there was no positive ending to that. Still, he bit his tongue and smiled, not wanting to be a cynic or cause a panic.

As the days went on, he noticed more police presence, and then the occasional army truck rolling passed. He would go to work at the docks and notice the helicopters whirling over the harbor, loaded with soldiers and guns. He wondered how many people in the city had ever actually seen that much firepower outside of movies. He himself had been in the army before, and knew the soldiers were hearing something different than the civilians, but he would never tell you that. He just kept his eyes on his work and his mind off the stiffness in his back. He had no time for it.

Nights were his biggest worries. The sirens and soldiers and constant gossip were easy enough to ignore during the day, but at night he had nothing to keep his mind off of it. He would fall asleep with a bottle in his hand and a burning in his gut. He was never much of a drinker, and used it as a last resort, but he would never tell you that. When the morning sun would open his day, he was always bitter . . . especially on the last day.

There was nowhere for anyone to go. He was afraid, but he would never tell you that. The city was in complete chaos. There was absolutely nowhere for him to go. Or at least that was his first, second, and third thought. But the time number four whirled through his head the radio had given him an idea. The evacuation order had been given for the greater Sydney area. Anyone who wanted to be safely quarantined was to get to the Botanical Garden. There they would be allowed entry after being examined and would be kept safe until proper transportation could arrive.

He saw several problems in this for him. For one, he lived in Glebe. Since the roads were blocked up by the military barricades and wayward cars, he would have to walk. On a good day, he could usually make it in two and a half hours. On this day, he counted on more. He considered the value of his life before deciding he would go. He had obtained a gun nearly a decade ago, but he would never tell you that. He assumed that now was the best time to take it out. He pulled up the loose floorboard and removed the revolver wrapped in a cloth. He checked it and thought it would work. He wouldn’t know until he really needed to use it. The official statement was not to engage anyone showing signs of infection, but one could defend himself if necessary. He thought about putting himself in a few situations where he needed to defend himself, but he would never tell you that.

Six bullets were loaded into the awaiting chambers, and the rest were loaded into his pocket. He filled his knapsack with a couple bottles of water, some bread, and a flashlight. He never considered himself a survivalist, but he liked to plan. With the gun carefully hidden underneath his shirt, he stepped outside. Nothing had changed. He thought back to the movies he had seen, the ones with disasters and monsters in them. He thought that there should have been more. There should have been roaring sirens and fires and people running in screaming hordes. Instead he saw an empty street with empty houses and even a few empty cars. He took a few steps and decided his journey would begin.

The first ten minutes showed him nothing. He looked across the water at the other parts of the city, and still no signs of panic. Every few minutes a boat or helicopter would whiz by, but it was nothing startling. He didn’t think any of this was real. He walked in the middle of the open road for a minute. This just made him feel uncomfortable and he went back to the sidewalk. He still stopped to look both ways for cars, but nothing was ever coming. The biggest shock to him was the lack of people. He wanted to run into a group of others, to give at least the illusion of safety, but he would never tell you that. He assumed everyone else was not as slow to start up as he was. There was probably a mob down at the Gardens. That’s where he would find everyone. Already breathing heavily, he just trudged on.

Thirty minutes into his journey he had his first scare. At first he thought it was more people, survivors like him, marching for the safe zone. When he got closer, though, he noticed there was something wrong with each of them. Before this, he had never seen any of the infected except for a few quick images on television. Now there were three, hobbling along in the same direction as him. However, when he his footsteps became louder, they all stopped and turned their heads. Each of them was disgusting in a way. The unifying feature was the blood smeared around their mouths. His stomach sank at the sight of this, but he would never tell you that. He thought about the gun he had, and then thought again. In his fictional encounters cooked up previously in his mind, there was only one of them. Three was another story, and it had been years since he had fired a gun. And that was an Army rifle, and that was at still targets. No, this was not how it was supposed to be.

Luckily the things could only shuffle at a slow pace. He turned and went down another street, quickly, and when he came out the other side he saw no sign of the creatures. If they were following him, they were too far behind to be a danger. He continued on his way, passed Darling Harbor, looking back every few seconds. It was at the harbor that he found his first real group of people. There were four, three men and a woman. They were all white except for one Aboriginal. He had never thought highly of the Aboriginals, but he would never tell you that. He stared at the group as he approached them. They had blood on them, yes, but none near their mouths. They seemed safe enough. And if not, he still had the gun.

“Hey,” the Aboriginal called, “Hey old man, over here!” The Aboriginal waved him over, which he thought was a bit stupid.

He walked up close to them and got a better look. They were bloody, and they were holding bloody clubs. One had what could have been a table leg, while two had cricket bats. The woman had a long piece of pipe.

“Where you coming from?” the Aboriginal asked him.

“Glebe,” he answered.

“We came from there, too,” the woman said. “Did you see many?”

“Many what?” he asked.

One of the other men, the shorter one, looked cross. “Any of the deados?”

“Deados?” he repeated to the short man. Then it clicked. “Oh, yeah. I saw three of them a little bit ago. That’s all.”

“How’d you handle them?” the tall man asked. “You don’t look like you’ve seen a fight yet.”

“I just walked around them,” he answered.

“Great . . .” the short man muttered.

“Listen, old man,” the Aboriginal started, “you can come with us, but we need to know we can count on you in a fight.”

He smiled and lifted his shirt. They all saw the gun and gasped. He was desperate for them to let him follow them along, but he would never tell you that.

“Shit, we’ve waited long enough,” said the tall man. “We better get a move on.”

There was not discussion about it. They just continued walking. They introduced themselves. He paid no real attention to which names went with which person. There was at least a Declan and possibly a Raymond. The only one he could pin was the woman’s. Her name was Kate. This made him think of his daughter, but he would never tell you that.

As they drew into the city, the evidence of the situation became more apparent. Some blood dotted the streets and brick. A body would be sticking out from a doorway or alley. No one seemed to be alive. There were no shouts. There were no calls. There were only a few bodies and more blood than could fill them.

“I don’t like this at all,” Kate said. “I told you we should have left earlier.”

“We’ll be fine,” the Aboriginal told her, “As long as we don’t run into too many of those things. Just be glad the streets aren’t packed. Otherwise we could get stuck in some mob and wouldn’t know who was a deado and who was alive. We would be bit before we knew it.”

“Bit?” He let the voice escape him before he thought it through.

“Yeah, bit.” The Aboriginal was now looking at him. “No one wants to confirm it, but anyone who gets a bite from one dies. We saw it happen.” There was silence and everyone just looked ahead. “Oh, and just in case you didn’t know already, you need to hit them in the head. They don’t stop otherwise.”

He wished now that he had paid more attention to the news at this point. He realized how disconnected he was from the rest of the world, but he would never tell you that. He just decided to add that to a list of his regrets.

Block by block they walked, the bodies and the blood becoming a recurring theme. There were also abandoned cars with open doors and random items littered about. Clothes and mobiles and chairs and suitcases. Everyone had left in a hurry. He wondered if it was worth it for them, if they were any safer because of that.

They were less than ten blocks away from the Botanical Gardens when they noticed a large group of deados. The group was facing away from them, staggering towards the Gardens. It was easy to see how they were among the infected; he noticed the blood and the scratches and the overall deadness to them.

“No one make any loud sounds,” the Aboriginal whispered. “Maybe we can move around them.”

He agreed with this plan. There were too many deados to count, and he did not trust his gun. Even if it did fire, he had no confidence in his aim. With only six shots, because he assumed he would not be able to reload in time while avoiding them all, he was not sure he could make it out alive. His heart was pounding the hardest it had been all day, but he would never tell you that. His breathing was getting heavier as well. He just gripped the pistol under his shirt and followed the others. They were moving towards a shopping centre.

The building seemed abandoned, and one of the glass doors had been shattered out. They moved in a single file line. There was enough light streaming to feign safety. He was the last one in. He could not keep his thoughts straight as the panic came in. Suddenly, as if to break the tension or make it worse, a gun shot rang out. And then another, and another. Everyone looked around, trying to judge where it was coming from. Eyes fell to him, naturally, as he was the only one with a firearm. But soon they all realized it was coming from somewhere outside. It was most likely from the Garden, he guessed. Maybe the soldiers were getting restless.

The next sound that was heard, however, nearly made him wet himself, but he would never tell you that. From inside the building, there was the shuffling of feet. Not just one pair, but a growing number of feet, moving from what seemed like every direction.

“There’s one!” the short man, who may have been called Declan, called out.

“Three more coming from down there,” the tall man, Raymond, returned.

“I see more over there!” Kate yelled. “We’re buggered!”

“No,” the Aboriginal, who’d withheld his name, said. “We’ve come too far. Just stick together and don’t get bit. If we can get to that exit, we can make a run for the gate.”

And while this group of young and determined people rallied together, he did not believe they would make it. He believed that this was the end, and that going down fighting was the only option. This was not a final thought of bravery, but he would never tell you that. This was a thought based on giving up, on throwing in the towel, on simply accepting the end. The end or not, he drew his revolver and took aim at the deado that was nearest to him. He remembered to aim for the head. The first shot went wild. Where the bullet ended up, he did not know. Firing the gun, however, did jerk something back to life in him. His second shot connected. The deado nearest him fell with a thump.

The rest around him were drawn to the sound. He took a look around and saw the others fighting with their clubs. They were beating the deados out of their way. They were also much farther ahead of him. He charged forward, leaping over the bodies and rubbish in his way, ignoring the stiffness in his knees. He caught up to them, fired twice more, and began to clear a path. He fired the final rounds in the chamber and shouted, “Cover me while I reload.”

He laughed to himself as he pulled the bullets out of his pocket and crammed them into the gun. He remembered that when he left the Army, they said the training would never leave. Apparently that was true. With the gun reloaded he fired away, taking down anything in his path. Those behind him were now the ones keeping up with him. He felt young, he felt invigorated, he felt like he was breaking free. And in the literal sense, he was breaking free. With his help, and the use of the gun, the group was able to get to the other exit. They emerged on the other side of the door to see the city before them. They were a few short blocks away from the Gardens.

Unfortunately the streets were filled with deados. The deados, those poor infected souls, were everywhere. “This is it!” he shouted to the group. He was suddenly a leader. “Let’s make a run for it!” And so they did.

There was less concern now with clearing the creatures in their path and more of a concern of simply getting away. They clambered their way through, avoiding everything they could. His chest was pounding, but he would never tell you that. Creatures lunged and clawed at him. He felt them tug at his clothes and legs. His bag was pulled off him. He would not stop, though. Suddenly there was a scream behind him, and he saw Declan topple over. Before there was anything to do, he was under a pile of deados. The group just kept moving, trying not to break the momentum.

The Botanical Garden was now in sight. He knew they just had to get to the main gate and they would be fine. There was another scream and Kate disappeared from the group. Another Kate was gone from his life. Raymond called for her and stopped. Of course, he was not willing to stop. He was so close to staying alive, and he was not going to let anything slow him down. The tall man disappeared with his woman, and he thought it was a worthless gesture, but he would never tell you that.

They reached the gate. Bodies lay all around it. The gunfire started up again. His own pistol was empty. He just needed to make it to the gate. He and the Aboriginal came into view of the soldiers.

“Let us through!” he called to the nearest soldier.

The gunfire continued. The soldier looked at the pair and made a decision.

“Are either of you bitten?” he asked them over the sound of the guns.

“No!” they called back in unison.

The solider looked carefully at them and considered. “Are there any more of you?”

“Not anymore,” he told the soldier.

He then realized there was a chain link fence between him and the inside of the Gardens. Thankfully the guard motioned for them to go around. The rifles stopped sounding long enough for the two to get to the smaller, makeshift gate. They went through, and saw the crowd that was assembled inside. Soldiers were running back and forth, carrying weapons and ammunition and other various supplies. People were huddled together or standing alone. Faces were streaked with tears. Someone mentioned to them that they were just waiting for the proper ferries to be organized, and then they would all be shipped out of the city. He heard all of this, but none of it really sank in. The only thing he was thinking was that he was alive.

“Thanks,” the Aboriginal said to him. “I mean, I made it, and a lot of that had to do with you.”

“Yeah,” he answered, “same with you. Sorry about your friends.”

The Aboriginal just continued to look at him. “I reckon we’ll all lose someone during this.”

He just nodded in agreement, but really thought he was lucky. He lost everyone long before this happened, but he would never tell you that.

The two parted ways. He went to go find a place to sit down and be alone. He found a somewhat secluded tree and was able to look out onto the water. He could see boats out there, probably waiting to be piled up with heaps of people. He didn’t know where they would all be taken, but he didn’t really care either.
“Anywhere but here,” he said out loud to himself.

He reached down and rubbed part of his ankle that was feeling sore. He felt something wet. When he brought his hand back and noticed the blood. In his shock, he just laughed. He was bitten, and unfortunately for everyone who felt safe inside those gates, he would never tell you that.

Feel the wrath. Read more.

The Savior

Dec. 2 - Wichita, Kansas

The Reverend Tucker Adams locked the door to the terminal ward at the hospital. He pulled an empty hospital bed in front of the door. His face turned bright red with the effort. He checked its position and then his watch. It was 3 o’clock in the morning.

His breathing picked up. Since the creatures began showing up, the hospital had become a sort of safe house. It was swarming with army guys, good Christian boys protecting those people who had taken refuge in the old building. Rev. Adams knew that he would only have a short time to do his work: The good Christian boys wouldn’t understand and would surely try to stop him. They didn’t yet know they were damned.

He dropped to his knees. “Korro, kale ma shata nurrunda ka sheileh! God, in the name of Jesus, please take these people into your arms so that they might live in heaven eternal.”

Adams stood up. He walked toward another empty bed near the door. He reached under it.

“Jesus, give me strength,” he said quietly as he pushed the primer button three times. He went over the facts in his head. If these people died, they would come back as those beasts. If they came back as those beasts they would be damned. These people would die; they were terminally ill. And he knew he couldn’t save their lives. But he could save their souls.

He pulled the cord.

The chainsaw began to sing. Rev. Adams knew the sound well. Before he was saved, he had been a lumberjack and a womanizer. He had a tattoo on his arm of a nude woman riding a chainsaw. The irony of this was lost on him as he brought the chainsaw down on a 20-year-old woman with terminal case of pneumonia.

Her eyes flashed open but before she could scream the chainsaw ripped open her throat. Arterial blood jumped out her freshly carved carcass and then stopped, along with her heart. The Reverend looked down: It seemed as if the blood flew everywhere except onto him. He took it as a sign, and continued.

There were six other occupied beds in the room. None of their occupants had woken up yet. He moved quickly to the next bed. It had a twelve-year-old boy in it. The reverend worked from the bottom up, which proved to be a mistake. As the boy’s feet and then thighs disappeared into red chipped meat, he screamed. The reverend, shocked by the sound, brought the blade of the chainsaw to bear on the child’s face, which opened as easily as a ripe melon, the contents of his skull spilling out onto the floor.

The next minute went by very quickly. The other patients had been woken by the scream. They were gathered together by a window and were weakly hitting it, hoping to get out. The good Christian boys were banging on the other side of the barricaded door, hoping to get in.

There was blood in the reverend’s eyes from the boy and they burned badly. He remembered seeing a picture of a Buddhist monk in Vietnam who once set himself on fire as an act of devotion and protest. He wondered if this is what that felt like; the burning of a soul coupled with the silence of a mind.

The patients’ screams of “WHY” and “NO” were cut short by the rotating blades of the saw.
“I won’t let you become those creatures!”

The saw cut through arms and hands.

“I’m sending you to God!”

The saw cut through torsos.

“The pain will be over soon!”

The saw cut through whatever parts were still whole. The reverend was making sure to cut each skull apart. At least these people, he thought, wouldn’t be damned.

By the time the door finally gave way, the reverend had finished his work. Adams didn’t turn around at the sound of the army boys screaming at him. Underneath their screams he could hear the mass of what had been bodies gurgling; it had something to do with chemicals of all those bodies mixing together. But underneath that he was sure he could hear the voices of angels singing.

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