30 Minute Plan
By Gerald Rice
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Gerald Rice
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30 Minute Plan copyright © 2011
Written by Gerald Rice. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, places or events is purely coincidental and unintended. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical or written, without express permission from the author.
For more information about the author, please visit his website: www.feelmyghost.webs.com.
30 Minute Plan
Lemons, strawberries, oranges…
Life was a fucking joke.
Danton was certain of it now. If the dead rising to feast on the living hadn’t been enough, now the brains had found a way to make them smell like fruit.
‘Scent marking’ the head brain had called it. Just trying to recall any of the long explanation as to why the brains had the dogs risk their necks to spray the stuff on packs of ziggies made his head hurt. It was well past us or them time and this was the best they could come up with?
It made Danton want to start his own thirty-minute plan.
General Tarver had noticed the ziggies traveled in packs four years ago. He’d reported it back to the brains and finally, two weeks ago Dr. Boyle had slapped a canister in Cargill’s hands with the word ‘lemon’ written with a sharpie on it. They’d given Danton one with ‘strawberry’ written on it and Tookes one with ‘orange’.
Their orders were simple enough: walk outside and find the biggest pack of ziggies and spray them down with this stuff.
Danton was ready to tell the pretty young brain who’d handed him his to go shove, but he was a soldier. A dog. He obeyed.
Slow or not, going outside was risky when ziggy was about. Danton was fast and he hustled until he came in contact with a pack. He’d almost threw down the canister and drew down on them, but no. There had to have been an explanation for this. He just didn’t like sticking out his neck before he’d heard it.
He waited until the lead one was just within twenty feet then began spraying them. It was a thick red fluid and yep, it did have the strong scent of strawberries. They didn’t seem to mind too much, even when he got it in their mouths. Danton circled the pack of ziggies, spraying them until the canister was empty.
Then the oddest thing: they turned and shambled away.
Danton shook himself out of his stance. He felt dull, like a knife that had been used too many times; he’d killed so many, destroyed so many more…
Had to go help Tookes. The sooner the other dogs were done the sooner they were all done. He jogged over to the intersection Tookes had headed to and spotted him on the ground thirty yards away.
Even without a face, Danton could identify him. His body had that stupid engagement ring on the pinky finger. Danton had told him several times there was no point in him carrying that flame. Either his girl was leftovers or she was boning some other studly who was keeping her safe.
The canister was by his side still, unused. Like he’d just stood there and let them take him. Except, they hadn’t eaten anything BUT his brain. Ziggy was weird like that sometimes. Despite the thickness of the skull they really could get to your brain. Bones in the face were thinner, more fragile. If a particular ziggy had enough think left in him he could stomp your face in just the right way to lift it right off your head. And then it was hors d’oeuvres for everybody.
Danton scooped up the canister and drew his weapon. A pack was just up the street.
“Hey!” he called. They all turned with the exact same stupid look on their faces. Ziggy’s version of surprise. Danton walked up to them and had gotten within ten feet before he started spraying. He noticed one of them had red-tipped fingers and shot it in the head. It fell to its knees like a whore with a new twenty dollar bill and slumped over.
“What was that?” somebody said over the com. “Dammit, I said not to destroy any of them.”
“It’s Tookes,” Danton said. “They got him.” He tossed his glock aside. They were given only one bullet for themselves in case they needed it.
“Well you still shouldn’t be shooting. You could simply spray Lieutenant Tookes as well.”
“No can do, sir.” The dogs had all made a vow amongst each other that if Ziggy took them down someone would take one of them down to even the score. Officially, Danton knew another dog was explaining to the brain on the com that a dog wouldn’t abide his brother being turned.
“Just get back here as soon as you can.”
It sounded like Boyle himself.
This pack did the same thing as the last when he finished the canister. They turned and headed in the direction they’d been going before he came. Was this stuff Ziggy repellent?
He’d met up with Cargill just before they made it back to base. They nodded to each other.
Cargill stunk of lemon.
“I slipped on some stupid kid’s skull,” he’d said, looking at his yellow-tinged hands.
Ziggy was knocking at the door less than five minutes after he and Danton had made it back. Except this time they were more insistent. Much more. Like they knew these people had something that belonged to them. And they wanted it back really bad.
Cargill had taken point when they burst through. He’d taken down four or five when the first set of hands had grabbed him. He could have fallen back, but Danton had seen it in his eyes before they came back in. He was dull too. That was the real reason he’d gotten that lemon shit on himself.
But another odd thing happened: they took him. Not took him and ate him, but took him away. Dragged him outside and went about their business. Cargill had fought all the way, but with only his fists and that big knife of his there was only so much he could do to Ziggy.
First order of business had not been to pursue and recover. First order of business was to secure the perimeter. The risk of leaving those doors open and another pack of ziggies waltzing in was too great. God be with Cargill, but he was on his own. Danton hoped he was big enough to slit his own throat or punch that blade into his own heart.
Danton chuckled when his com squawked and Cargill’s voice whispered, “I’m still alive.”
He couldn’t have been. Ziggy could have eaten him ten times over in the two weeks he was gone. They had him. Even if he could have fought his way free he would have been bitten at least a dozen times. There was no way he was upright still.
“Who is this?” Kent barked.
“It’s me, sir. Cargill.”
“Cargill’s dead, son. If this is some kind of joke I don’t find it—”
“No joke.” The man claiming to be Cargill rattled off a series of identification numbers. It really was him. Danton smirked. Maybe Ziggy had learned to speak.
“H-how are you…”
“I don’t know, but Ziggy hasn’t made a move on me. At least the ones in my pack.”
The lemon-scented ones, Danton thought.
“They smashed my com when they took me, but other than a few bumps and scrapes I’m still upright. I found another soldier. Not sure who—there wasn’t that much left of him. But I took his com.”
“What have you been eating?” Dr. Boyle asked into Kent’s com.
“You don’t wanna know, sir.”
“Can you make it back to base?”
“Uh, that’s a negative, sir.”
“You said you are in a pack. Just to be specific—are you in a pack of zombies?”
“That’s affirmative, sir. Ziggy is in the house.”
Danton chuckled. He heard a couple others.
“Cargill—tell me, other than accepting you into the group, have you noticed any other altered behaviors?”
There was patch of static and when it cleared he was saying, “—over on the hill. They’ve been following us.”
“I’m sorry, Cargill, you broke up a moment. Who’s following your group?”
“Another pack. A large one. They smell like—”
“Come again. They smell like what?”
“Wood chips. Dammit, they smell like wood chips.”
Boyle fixed his mouth as if he were about to repeat what Cargill had said. He was confused.
“I don’t understand,” he said to himself.
“What’s not to understand?” Klingerman said. He was a civilian. Could run like hell and cleave the crap out of a ziggy skull. “He said they smelled like wood chips. So what?”
“Well, none of our boys was equipped with a spray with that scent.”
“So somebody else is doing it,” someone Danton couldn’t see chimed in.
“Some other group of scientists,” Mary said. She was seated next to him. Danton used to dig her until he found out she was into chicks. Now he was just about ravenous when he looked at her. He forced himself to keep facing forward.
“No,” Boyle said. “Not possible. We’re the only facility capable of any such things in at least a hundred mile radius. Any scientific group wouldn’t have ventured this far to experiment. The danger from traveling all the way here and traveling all the way back to their lab to monitor their subjects would have been too great.
“So it was something else.” Danton made it sound like a statement, hoping he sounded smart for Mary. The chick she got down with was one of the brains.
“What?” Boyle said, addressing Danton directly. “The rain? It hasn’t done that in well over a month—well before we began our own experiment. And if it were any other natural phenomena I imagine it would have manifested well before now. There is no legitimate explanation for this, Danton. There is no ‘something else’ unless you have some factor none of our dwindling scientific community has considered and would like to posit that theory now.”
Danton didn’t. Mary coughed behind him. Like she was covering up a laugh. His cheeks burned.
“I know what it is.” Kenton stood up and stretched his long body. Everyone turned to him. He was a civvie too, but most people thought he was pretty smart. “Cargill’s wrong. Whatever he’s smellin’ is wrong. Hell, how do we know that lemon stuff he got on him didn’t affect his brain? How do we know the zigs didn’t turn him and that stuff somehow preserve his brain and he’s trying to lure us out or something?”
Boyle nodded. Danton looked around, everyone seemed to agree. Shit.
“Cargill,” Boyle said into the com. “Have you noticed any changes with your own body?”
“You
mean other than being tired as hell? I haven’t slept in four days.
This other
pack—”
“Yes-yes, Cargill, we’ll come to that in a moment, but about you…” Boyle looked around as if trying to pull his question from the air. “Have you had any scratches, bites, cuts, scrapes—anything?”
“No, man, I’m fine except for my aching tootsies.”
More nervous laughter.
“I think Kenton has a point. We can’t trust anything Cargill says. But I don’t think we can disregard it on the off-chance he isn’t infected. For now he’s considered compromised.”
People were nodding. What was worse was other dogs were nodding too. This wasn’t right. ‘Compromised’ meant no rescue. If Cargill was got—and that was a big if—then they owed it to him to put him down. Maybe he hadn’t been able to go on the thirty minute plan, but that didn’t mean they could just leave him that way. If Boyle thought he was an idiot, fine, but he was an idiot who wasn’t about to let a brother be lumped in with Ziggy.
If Cargill was got he would do him himself. That probably meant sneaking out and never making it back. Danton knew that wasn’t smart, but his mind was set. Besides, he was pissed Boyle had embarrassed him. Danton didn’t know anything about calculated threats and risk assessments, but he was going to go out there and find Cargill. It would be worth it to prove that brain wrong.
Unless Boyle called him ‘compromised’ too.
For half a second Danton thought he was fixing to make a mistake.
Then he imagined he was stomping on that lizard part of his brain, the coward part of him would never win. Never. He was going.
***
When Danton felt stubborn enough he moved fast. At two the next morning he was in the arsenal, zipping up a duffelful of weapons. It was about to be shock and awe time. He had his sidearm on his hip and a half dozen magazines in his belt and twin machetes crisscrossed on his back for when the guns went out. He even had a grenade on his belt loop. If he ever had to go on the thirty minute plan he would take a hell of a lot of ziggies down first.
Now came the hard part: getting out of here with all this shit.
Danton peaked out into the hall. Nelson was on patrol tonight and likely half inside a bottle and/or asleep. But the doors were all alarmed now that Ziggy had successfully broken inside. Danton had to find a way out without setting off the alarm and without leaving an opening for Ziggy to get in. Despite all the lemon and strawberry-scented zombies that weren’t eating people anymore there were singles about and they were more dangerous than a single zig from a pack in close quarters. Singles were smarter and more adept at catching people. Danton would be outside in the dark, meaning he’d have to use a flashlight. Singles would zoom in on the light.
He was past the mess hall when he heard someone’s slippered feet slapping on the linoleum floor. Danton ducked around a corner and held his breath as Hargrove, another brain, yawned and came out with a fruit cup. Hargrove was a sleep-eater. The pudgy man shambled right past him like he was invisible.
Packs were like that sometimes. That’s why they were easy to avoid. It’s the singles you had to worry about. They wouldn’t just shuffle past. If you hid behind a car they tended to look around. A lot of them could even open doors. Danton would rather come up against a pack any day.
There was a row of plexi-glass windows in a room they’d converted to storage not long after they’d moved everyone into this building. In the early days there was a tremendous amount of shelling going on in every major city. Humans had probably killed more of their own than Ziggy did. Danton had noticed one of the panes was a little loose. It’d be a tight fit, but he could manage his way through. Unlike a lot of the other dogs, he’d maintained himself and he should have been able to shimmy his hundred sixty-two pound frame through.
The tricky part would be when he removed the pane. He’d have to do everything in the dark and if Ziggy was right there he and everyone else would be done for. The storage room locked, but from the inside. There’d be no problem with them getting in the main corridor and once that happened everyone would be dead.
Danton made his way down the hall to the storage room. He felt giddy for just a moment—he was actually going to make it. He slid into the dark room and zigzagged around bulky sheet-covered pieces of equipment and furniture, heading for the loose panel. A slice of moon shone through and at first it wouldn’t budge. Panic clenched his gut, but then the window slid an inch, then another. A thin column of cool air lapped his face and he pulled the pane the rest of the way out, resting it in the opening.
It was a tight fit at first, but he finally managed to shove the duffel outside. He was about to climb on top of whatever machine was pushed against the wall when he felt pressure in his bowels.
Uh-oh.
“Of all the times—”
Danton knew he shouldn’t complain. It would be far better for him to go now than after he got outside. Number One and number Two attracted Ziggy. Big time. He didn’t know if it was because on some instinctual level Ziggy knew living things needed to do that or if they were literally attracted to shit and piss. Sure, he’d never seen one eat a deuce before, but…
He drummed his fingers on the wall, wondering if he should go through all the trouble of putting the pane back just to remove it again. Danton doubted he could pull the duffel back inside and it would be risky leaving it out there. Now he’d have to worry about a scavenger too.
He checked his watch. It was a little after three. Grant would be up in a half hour. Had to hurry. Danton made his way back to the door, peaked out and crossed the hall to the restroom. He went into the stall, not bothering to lock it and quickly removed his jacket and several weapons from his belt so he could get his pants down.
Shouldn’t have messed with that chili, he thought.
When he finished he reached back and flushed.
“Dammit!” he whispered. That would have been just enough noise to wake somebody. He stood as quietly as he could and listened. There wasn’t anyone out there so far as he could hear.
He got his clothes back on and was washing his hands before he’d even thought about it. In a few moments he’d be running for cover from Ziggy if not battling him outright. He doubted Ziggy would point him for poor hygiene.
Danton opened the door and was surprised to see the back of Boyle’s bald head. The head brain spun around and stared at him with a dumbfounded look.
“I think someone broke in,” the old man said. Danton wanted to burst his bubble so badly, but he felt an equal amount of panic. He was caught, but he was the only one who knew it. Danton was the only one who knew about that pane, so they were thinking someone had broken in. It hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind somebody was trying to break out.
“What?” Danton fixed a worried expression on his face. He was worried too; afraid he was about to be caught. He wanted to run back to his room and hide. Forget about Cargill, forget about the big bag of guns, he just wanted to be safe. But he knew he was past the point of no return. As soon as Boyle had gotten over his own fear he’d analyze the situation. Like one of his experiments, he would take the known facts and apply them to several theories. Whichever one filtered true would be the one he’d believe.
Those eyes had contained nothing but fear, but they were constantly recording. He’d seen everything Danton had had on and upon future reflection would know it was him and not some straggler who’d found a way inside.
Danton brushed past the brain and went into the room. The light was on and a half dozen dogs were standing around apprizing the situation.
“What are you doing?” Eddies asked as he stood up on the copier and peeked out the window.
“Looking to see if Ziggy’s around.”
“We need to figure out how to patch this window up. Whoever broke in here, if he’s still here, dropped it on the floor. Woke the whole place up. I see you came ready.”
Danton looked down and saw the plexi-glass section split in two jagged halves. That would have made a loud sound. He gave his forehead a mental slap. The restroom was soundproofed—of course he wouldn’t have heard it.
“Hey, why are you wearing all that stuff?” Groome asked. “I only brought my sidearm.”
“I was already awake.” Danton shimmied his way up. He was going to have to play this fast. Any minute it was going to start clicking what he was really up to. “I’m just going to see if anyone is around.”
“Danton, get back here,” Eddies said, but his legs slipped out after him and he planted his feet on the ground and stood.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t worry.”
He was risking his neck to save one of his own. No way had he gone this far just to draw down on another dog. He had to get away quick before someone came after him and started shooting.
Danton could feel their eyes on him. Someone whisper-shouted and he turned and waved them off. A few more feet and he would be clear.
“Danton! It was Danton!”
Boyle. Dammit.
He took off running and a moment later heard a bullet whiz off somewhere in the distance. He rounded the corner and was clear momentarily. His camo was bright enough to make out in the weak moonlight, but he gambled that if he got at least fifty yards away they wouldn’t pursue.
The bag!
Dammit!
There was no turning back now. If they wouldn’t have executed him before, they certainly would now. Danton was AWOL and the first rule after the dogs had organized after the apocalypse was deserters got shot in the face. There was no explaining that he just wanted to see Cargill put down right, that he wasn’t really abandoning the base.
He was as dead as if Ziggy was chomping on his arm right now.
If he’d actually thought about what he was doing he probably wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. His superior officers had often told him he was a good soldier, but he needed to use his head more. Maybe if he’d tried he could have convinced them to send him out to find Cargill. Hell, maybe they would have sent him with someone. Who knew what scientific data could have been gathered?
All that made perfect sense. Now.
“Might as well finish this mistake.”
He turned in the direction where Cargill’s lemony ziggies had been circling for the last three weeks. That was the thing about packs. They tended to circle several times before changing direction and circling elsewhere. He hoped they hadn’t changed yet.
Keeping low, Danton started a light jog with a machete in his hand, wondering where the smell of burning wood was coming from.
***
Danton planted his foot on Ziggy’s face and slid his machete out of its skull. Some poor sap who’d been a hobo in the before; life hadn’t dealt him a heavy enough blow—no, he had to come back as a flesh-eater.
It was unusually quiet. Danton hadn’t even so much as run into a straggler. Stragglers were ziggies that had fallen away from their pack. They didn’t last too long. A pack had a collective intelligence. They tended to avoid things like large bodies of water or buildings on the verge of collapse. A straggler would walk right into an open manhole. Or maybe it would run into a single.
Danton was amazed to learn the brutal hierarchy in the Ziggy community. Singles wouldn’t bother packs, wouldn’t bother other singles, but if they found a straggler…Danton’s mind floated back to the ziggy he just slayed. A straggler. Either he’d gotten separated from his pack or maybe something Cargill had said rang true.
The smell of burning wood chips was still in the air, but more faint. If there was this new pack that had been scent-marked by someone could it be attacking other packs? What if someone had figured a way to put these higher-thinking ziggies into packs?
He shuddered at the thought. A pack that had the mental capacity to problem solve might be just this side of unstoppable.
Danton hoped Cargill wasn’t in his right mind. That maybe he could just put the man down and find safety again.
“Cargill, you there?” Danton said into his com. After a moment he heard a few clicks. Morse code.
“T-A-L-K-L-A-T-E-R,” came the reply. He wondered if that pack was close by.
“P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N?” he signaled back to him.
He knew the base could hear, that there were at least a dozen dogs who knew Morse code, but he had to try.
“U-N-V-R-S-T-Y-A-N-D-D-A-L-E.”
“University and Dale,” Danton said. That was less than a half mile from here. In less than two hours he could be there. But how far would they have traveled by then?
And would he run into whatever hobo-man’s pack had run into?
As if on cue, Danton caught movement from the corner of his eye. He got into a crouch and peaked beneath the burned-out car he was next to, sliding his machete back in its holster as his took out his sidearm. A pair of tiny feet in black dress shoes were running his way.
Running. That meant whoever it was was alive. And young from the looks of it. She was probably running from something.
Danton scanned around then peaked up above the door and through the empty windows. The little girl had her head ducked low as she ran and when he looked past her he saw it. A single was about forty yards behind her.
She must have seen him because she was headed right for him. The little girl rounded the car and ran into his arms, burying her face in his jacket. He didn’t want to shoot the single, but he had no choice. It had seen her and she had run to him and the zig would follow them around until it had forced the situation. Hell, if it recognized that he was carrying, things could get real cat-and-mouse.
Danton waited until it was about fifteen yards before he squeezed the trigger. Ziggy’s scalp lifted like a puff of air had been injected beneath it and the flesh-eater fell over on its face mid-stride.
Danton looked around to see if anything else moved before checking on the girl.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a child. Well, a couple of the civvies had had kids, but they were babies, not even a year old. But what must have happened to the children out here in the wild… Danton got choked up just thinking about it.
He holstered his gun and pushed the girl back by the shoulders. She was filthy and stunk. Her hair was a tangled black mess that had grown down to her knees. Danton took an index and tucked the slick ropey mess blocking her face behind an ear.
She was pretty. Maybe not traditionally so, but in that all children were beautiful kind of way. He’d gladly shoot a hundred more ziggies in the face if it meant protecting her. She was looking down when he hooked his finger under her chin and raised her face.
“Honey, you okay?”
Her gold-grey eyes flashed up and he knew something was wrong. There wasn’t any time to stop it as she opened her mouth and sprayed a putrid green fluid into his eyes. Danton fell onto his butt, blind, spitting and gagging as the smell threatened to overcome him. He pulled his sidearm and shot where he thought it was, hoping he could at least wound the thing before it could attack him again.
Neotony. Danton had no clue how he knew such a word, or why it would choose now to pop into his head, but whatever that thing was, it wasn’t a child. He dug out his flask of water from his thigh pocket and did a quick eye rinse and squinted his eye open.
She was gone. Maybe whatever that poison was it was meant to debilitate him. He felt fine now, relatively, but that could change in a few minutes. He had to find a place to hide, but where?
Danton stood and ran, hoping he might be able to spot whatever that thing was and shoot it. He’d stomp on its head too if he got a chance. Maybe that would send a message to any more of them if there were others.
“That’s it, no more kids,” he said.
Where ever she’d run, she was quick. Other than a few burned out cars spread out pretty far from each other there wasn’t anything really to hide behind.
Danton realized he was afraid. He was alone now. Truly alone. He’d already accepted that, but now there was an x-factor. An unknown quantity, as Boyle liked to put it. Except he’d actually come face-to-face with it and it had spat in his eye.
Speaking of which, Danton realized his eyes weren’t burning any more. They still teared up and he could feel the gunk accumulating each time he blinked, but it was better. Much. So far as he knew poison didn’t do that.
But if it wasn’t poison…
Never mind. Best not think about it. If he started trying to be like the brains out here he’d be chow for Ziggy by noon.
The sky had turned a bruised red by the time he saw anything else that moved.
It was a shambler. It was old—grey-skinned with filmed over eyes. Its forearm was broken and half the hand missing. Its blond hair was perfect. Hell, it could have been a single, he couldn’t tell. It had no legs, but it had propped itself up on its… well, he guessed its waist. Entrails spider-webbed from its body into the street and when it saw Danton it began reaching for him with the hand it wasn’t using to balance itself.
He took out his nightstick and hefted it. It wasn’t fair, but that was life, or afterlife. Danton laughed at his half-joke as he circled the ziggy. It feebly turned to and fro as he stayed mere inches out of its impotent reach.
Danton’s mind went back a couple weeks ago when he’d last been outside, spraying that stupid crap of Boyle’s that had gotten this whole mess started to begin with. Well, not the whole mess.
But Cargill would never have gotten that lemon shit all over him had it not been for Boyle and Danton wouldn’t be out here now, an exile, trying to find the man, if not for the good doctor.
His fear was bleeding over into anger. Danton hated being afraid. The last time he’d felt this was he was still in the penitentiary, right as the world had started going to hell. He remembered hearing a guard had attacked an inmate and a few days later things had dissolved into chaos.
General Tarver had marched in and made camp just outside the outer fence. Danton and a few others had tried to tear their way through the fence, one had tried to climb over and gotten tangled up long enough for Ziggy to pick him down piece-by-piece.
“You gotta get me out of here,” Danton had begged, banging on the fence.
“No, son.” General Tarver’s tone was impossibly calm. He didn’t shout, but his voice carried to Danton just the same. “You need to do one of two things: get yourself out or survive the next three days.”
Danton shuddered at what he’d had to do to make it. But at the end of the third day the general and his men marched in and slaughtered every Ziggy in sight. Danton and two others had survived unscathed, but there were dozens of men who been bitten or injured. That was when Danton had learned fealty to his fellow man.
He’d been in the system over five years. He could honestly say he’d spent majority of the time hating everyone in there. The Aryans, the Brothers, the Chicanos, the Asians. Danton didn’t join the Aryans because he’d been a dick on the outside, but not that kind of dick. But that didn’t stop the other gangs and the Aryans from coming at him. But Danton had always been able to handle himself. He almost always had given more than he got.
But Tarver showed him that all these men—regardless of color—were his brothers. There was a new enemy that was counting on men being divided to win and when he turned his back on his brothers he was offering his throat to Ziggy. General Tarver had seen to it personally that each man who had been bitten or scratched was put down in the most humane way possible. By the last few he’d had Danton take over—a clean shot to the dome. Danton was weeping by the time he’d shot the second man because he truly understood. All this time his love for these people had been disguised as hate, but he was making amends for it by sending them home.
The other two prisoners had had to go through the same process and by the time they were done they were crying too. But Simpson couldn’t pull the trigger on the last one, he just didn’t have it in him. And the man, even though the infection hadn’t taken him yet, jumped Simpson, biting off two of his fingers before two dogs swiftly dispatched him.
“Son, you are on the thirty minute plan,” Tarver said, handing Simpson his sidearm after they’d bandaged his hand. The general turned to all of them, his voice still that same even tone. “Each of you has a responsibility to your brothers. To take care of your brother and for him to take care of you whenever either of you is unable to take care of yourself. Man can no longer afford to be an island unto himself, he is part of the greater community of humanity. We owe Ziggy our gratitude; he has reminded us of this.
“With or without honor,” he turned and looked at Simpson. “The choice is yours.” The younger man looked at the gun in his hand, looked at Tarver, looked at all of them. His eyes were great big pools, ready to flood at any moment. That was the first time Danton had heard the term ‘thirty minute plan’. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was slowly getting the idea. He’d seen men turn two hours after being bitten. He figured in a half hour a body could get himself right with the Lord if he was motivated.
But Simpson seemed unsure. Ten minutes had been used up stopping the bleeding. Tarver glanced down occasionally as they all stood around, watching the man with the gun. Danton later saw Tarver’s palm-sized pocket watch.
Twenty minutes went by. Twenty-two. Twenty-four. Simpson didn’t seem to be able to do anything more than shift from side to side and stare down at that gun like some mighty anchor holding him to the earth beneath his feet.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.
Nobody else seemed to move except him and Danton. And Tarver’s head going down-up, down-up, every minute or so. Even Gibbons, the other prisoner, was still as a statue.
Twenty-nine.
Danton didn’t know why he felt unsure what to expect. Either Simpson would do it or he wouldn’t. Why was he so nervous?
“I-I can’t,” Simpson said. “Can’t we just wait to, y’know, be sure?”
Nobody answered. Danton wanted to chime in and say he’d watch over him. That he would take care of Simpson if and when he turned. But he couldn’t even open his mouth.
“That’s time, son,” General Tarver said, stepping up to Simpson and holding out his hand for the gun. Simpson was afraid. He raised the hand with the gun, holding it out limp before letting it slide from his palm. “It’s all right now.” Simpson’s arm fell back to his side.
Danton felt nervous energy pour down and out of his feet. If he’d been tired after the last three days of no sleep and constant fighting for his life now he felt like a hundred pound weight had been tied around his neck.
The gunshot jerked him erect again and he looked up to see Simpson pressed against the wall behind him, his head against a giant red Rorschach blot. His eyes were half-lidded and he was gone before his butt hit the floor.
Tarver holstered his other gun and turned back to the dogs.
“The same for every single one of you. If you cannot die with honor, you will still die with dignity. I will not abide Ziggy amongst our ranks, either former or present. Neither will you. We will approach Ziggy without animosity, without hate, but with the certainty that we will absolutely do to him what he would not hesitate to do to us.”
By the time they’d reached the base Danton was a full-fledged dog. He’d been ready to take on Ziggy but General Tarver had been cautious, negotiating them away from Ziggy as often as possible. But eventually they’d had to engage and Danton had acquitted himself well. He didn’t know if anyone else kept count, but he’d personally slaughtered seven ziggies.
The last one had been the hardest.
Danton felt his anger ease and he was able to think more clearly, though the first thought that popped into his mind was a pipe dream: killing that brain Boyle. On the one hand he felt he was doing what was the right thing in finding and destroying Cargill, but on the other he felt his hand had been forced, like he’d been manipulated into handling this all wrong.
Either way, Cargill would be destroyed. But he hoped Boyle wouldn’t be far behind.
Danton smelled something. Lemons! He ducked behind a section of sidewalk that was standing almost vertically out of the ground. Earth clung to the underside of it. The ground in a forty foot radius was deeply pitted as if it had rained fire here. A moment later and he began to hear the groans of Ziggy.
The lemon scent swelled in his nose. This was definitely them. He drew his machetes. Danton didn’t have enough ammo to put them all down and he didn’t care to anyway. He was only doing this to get to Cargill. Ziggy could be caught off guard and if he gave them the bum’s rush he could get away with his skin still intact.
They were twenty feet past, walking to his right when he spotted Cargill right in the middle, eyes straight. He estimated thirty so far. This was going to be harder than he thought, but still doable. They were in an ovular pattern and Cargill was three or four bodies in.
Danton rushed them, slicing off the first two ziggies’ heads. One of them grabbed his shoulder and he spun and sliced off its hands. Another ziggy lunged and his blade sliced through its head and eyes, blinding it. He shoulder bumped the last one between him and Cargill and was about to bring both his machetes down on his brother’s head when he saw Cargill’s eyes.
He was alive.
Considerably thinner and gaunt-looking but those were the eyes of a human being. Danton checked his dual swing and tumbled away from another ziggy that lunged at him.
Cargill blinked down at him and his mouth fell open.
“Danton?” His voice was a whisper.
“I have to get you out of here.” Danton chopped into another ziggy’s dome and his machete made it midway down its forehead before it slumped to the ground. The pack was beginning to turn on him. He had to get away.
Danton began slicing at arms and hands and mouths as they drew nearer. He kicked one center mass, pushing it back into four others and creating a small gap he might be able to squeeze through. A hand grabbed his shoulder before he could jump and he smelt cold, rancid-fruit breath as another ziggy’s mouth drew much too close.
Cargill elbowed the ziggy aside and broke the grip of the one holding him. He grabbed Danton and shoved his way through until he’d broken the pack.
Danton was ready to fight them off; he could definitely do it from outside the pack. Maybe he could take them all down. He was fast enough even though his eyes burned from the thick citrusy smell from within the pack. But they stopped where they were.
Danton didn’t get it.
“I’m their… I’m their leader,” Cargill said, his hands resting on his shoulders. “We protect each other. I don’t understand it, probably something Boyle put in those canisters. Maybe it has a symbiotic effect on living humans in relation to Ziggy.” Danton didn’t know what that one word meant, he figured it must have meant ‘calming’ or some shit like that. “But that’s why they broke in the base and took me. They sensed me—sensed I was one of them. Except I’m still alive.”
“Why aren’t they eating you?” Danton asked.
“I can control them, for the most part. It’s a low level grunting kind of thing. I warn them away from dangers and keep the pack tight. There’s another pack following us.”
“The ones that smell like burning wood?”
“Yeah, that’s them. You’ve seen them?”
“No, but I was close. Got a good whiff.”
“Good. Avoid them. When we first saw them there were only a dozen. I don’t know where their numbers are coming from, but three days ago there were twenty at least. And I think they’re all singles.”
“But singles don’t pack up,” Danton said.
“I know. There’s something else going on.”
“Boyle said there couldn’t be another group experimenting. Anyone else who could do it is too far away. Oh yeah, and if you come back to base they’ll kill you.”
Cargill nodded. “Figures. Don’t think I’d go back anyway. It’s not safe. These guys are protecting me. Hell, they even find food for me.”
Ziggy’s groans started getting louder.
“I don’t think you can hang around anymore. You’re still food. It’s agitating them.” Cargill dropped his hands. Danton put his machetes away.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do here. His brother hadn’t been infected. Not only that, but he seemed to be thriving. WWGTD?
Either way Danton was on his own. He figured he may as well leave Cargill be.
“Wait a minute—what’s that stink?” Cargill leaned in close and sniffed. “You smell like… like ashes.” Danton didn’t know what he was talking about. Cargill grabbed his hands, turned them over and smelled the skin at the wrist exposed between his gloves and jacket. “It’s you!”
Cargill shoved his hands away and growled. Ziggy stepped up behind him. Danton didn’t know what happened but it looked like he was going to have to put a fellow dog down after all. He threw a left hook, catching Cargill on the temple, sending the man back into two ziggies.
The other man’s eyes rolled around in his head, but he stood up, assisted by the ziggies he’d fallen on.
“So you’re one of them now.” Cargill didn’t say it like he was asking. Danton didn’t know who he was talking about but he drew his machetes again.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m one of them. And we’re gonna rip all of you lemon-scented pussies to shreds.”
“No.” Cargill shook his head. “You came alone.” He was on top of Danton in a flash, one of the machetes tumbling out of his hand. Danton tried to slice at him with the other, but Cargill had his arm pinned down. He snapped his teeth way too close, but was held at bay by Danton’s hand at his throat.
Danton felt something burning at the back of his throat and under his upper gums. It wasn’t just Cargill’s disgustingly effervescent breath, something was happening. Cargill put his weight down on his arm, bringing his face even closer and that’s when something happened.
Cargill jumped off him just as fast as he’d jumped on, coughing and clutching at his throat. He disappeared into the pack and several ziggies glared at him as they began to move. Danton had no clue what had just happened. He stood and collected his other machete, watching the pack leave.
He hoped it was the last time he saw his brother.
Danton didn’t know what he was going to do, where he was going to go. He turned to head in the other direction.
And saw the little girl standing thirty feet away in a nest of remnants of burned out cars in a semi-circle.
He knew she would run so he didn’t, but he kept walking in her direction, his eyes darting left and right in case she was setting up an ambush. Whatever she was, he wanted to take her head off before whoever she was with got to him.
There was something metallic and sour on his tongue. He spat but it was still there. Danton rolled his tongue around his mouth, the distance closing between him and the girl. His gums were tender.
When they were ten feet apart the girl started walking to him. They were five feet apart when she dipped behind a twisted rusty steel door. Danton followed, gripping the handle of his machete. It was tight in the cabin of the half-crushed mini-van and he saw her slipping out of the rear window. He pushed his way to the back and saw he couldn’t exit the way she did so he kicked the passenger door with both feet until it fell off its hinges.
She skittered over the roof of another car. There wasn’t that much clearance as another car rested on top of it. No way was Danton fitting in there, but he squeezed behind the rear of the car where its bumper was melted to another. He was in a narrow corridor of skeletal automotive remains and could see her through holes in the melted, flaked metal wall separating them.
She twirled around with her hands over her head and then placed her palms on the wall where he was. She was toying with him. Was this how she killed her prey?
Danton saw a thin slit in the wall and punched his machete through. She gasped, but easily slipped around it before returning to her mock-ballet dancing. He jerked his machete back, his head feeling thick and swimmy. Maybe that poison was working on him after all.
He wanted to get away, but was unsure how to get back out. Danton supposed he could try climbing over top of the cars, but there were too many sharp edges. If he cut himself on one of them there’d be almost no way to prevent an infection.
At the end of the corridor there was a small opening. Maybe he could get through there and get to her. Danton got down on his knees and put his head and an arm through. Brief panic struck as he got stuck at his chest but he was able to wedge through without taking off his jacket.
Where had she gone? Danton scanned the enclosed area. There was a blanket on top of a bunch of old, rolled up newspapers and a pillowcase filled with something lumpy. This wasn’t a bad living arrangement. The cars kept out all the elements but rain, at least until winter, and Ziggy would have a helluva time getting in here. The only reason he’d made it inside was because she’d led him here.
Why would she bring him to her home?
His legs were weak and he leaned on a pile of tires to keep himself upright. He saw stars like he’d been sucker punched and had to concentrate on the earth beneath his feet and close his eyes as everything began spinning and he could feel the blood blasting through his veins.
She came out from where ever she’d been hiding and began pummeling him with her tiny hands and feet, making high-pitched grunting noises. Danton swung wildly with his machete, hoping in vain to catch her. The blows didn’t hurt but if he couldn’t stop her now he had no clue what she’d do next.
Danton was finally able to open his eyes and he chopped at her head. She easily leaned back and out of the way, coming back to give him a one-two combination to the groin for good measure. He staggered back, shards of pain lancing the underside of his belly. She stood and watched him, her head cocked to the side.
By the time he was able to move again the stars had cleared from his eyes. He felt odd. No, odd was the wrong word. Different. Like he’d been taken from a warm bed and dumped in the middle of a snow storm. It wasn’t a shock to his system but the change wasn’t dissimilar. Everything was the same as it was a moment ago, but the view was definitely altered.
Danton went after her again, but the energy wasn’t in his legs. He didn’t know if it was from whatever had just happened to him or if he just didn’t want to catch her. She grunted and ran around the pile of tires, slowing down to let him catch up, then speeding out of reach. He hit the tires over and over again and realized he was missing her on purpose. He started laughing.
He was enjoying this and didn’t understand why.
He began to raise his arm to cleave her head in two, but she grunted.
What was odd was he almost felt as if he’d understood it. He raised his arm again. She grunted again.
No, she was saying.
But how? She hadn’t actually said it.
She grunted again.
Come with me, it sounded like.
He should have killed her, but he followed instead.
She walked for at least a half a mile, tracking back the way he’d come by a different route until the base was within throwing distance.
“What are you doing here?” alarms in his head began going off.
She pointed to the base and whimpered. She wanted to go in there, but she wasn’t big enough.
No, that wasn’t it exactly.
She wanted the people in there. But she was so small… she’d never be able to get them all.
Danton didn’t think she wanted to eat them, but what?
She pointed at him and made quick grunts.
He could do it for her.
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
She smiled, but it was too much gum. He stared at her mouth, his tongue playing over where the gum line was in his own mouth. Their gums were swollen in the same way.
Had she…
It made sense now. She wasn’t some helpless child. She was another predator; one nobody had seen before. She wanted to make more like her, to make her own pack. And whatever she was, Danton was one now too.
“Oh no.”
Rage boiled up inside him, but as soon as he reached his arm back he was overwhelmed with cramps, falling to his knees. He had to hold that position for several minutes while waves of pain washed over him. His gums throbbed and pulsed until they had bulged outward.
When he looked at her again finally something was different. She wasn’t just some creature, she was like a distant relative almost. He couldn’t destroy her. He had to protect her.
They had to protect each other.
Her head darted left and right as she sniffed the air. Danton could smell it too.
Burning wood.
There was a small pile of scrap metal behind her. She turned and pushed it away. Danton’s duffel bag was there.
Despite the situation he found himself smiling. He had enough in there to take on a small army.
“Hide,” he would’ve said to her, but she was already gone. Something told him to go with her, to defend her if needed.
Well the best way to defend was to offend. Danton thought so anyway.
He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and dug out a grenade launcher and an AK-47.
Danton could smell them. Burnt wood singed his nose as he strolled down the street. It didn’t take long. One of them came out from behind a two-story wall that was all that remained of a brick-faced building. It began throwing rocks at him. No, not rocks. Jagged chunks of concrete.
Danton dodged out of the way of one that came a little too close and spied movement to the other side of him behind some double-stacked road partitions.
He leveled off the rattler and squeezed the trigger. The partitions and everything behind them exploded into quarter-sized chunks.
The first Ziggy promptly dropped his rocks and hid behind his wall again. Danton brought it down on top of him. While the dust was still settling he walked over and put a bullet in the ziggy’s skull as he was crawling out.
Something roared ahead and Danton looked up to see three more heading his way. These were different. Still slow like Ziggy, but he could see purpose in how they moved. They had the same single-mindedness as Ziggy, but they actually thought as to how to achieve this goal.
Something Boyle said floated into Danton’s mind. He remembered the brain talking about how the virus had been constant in all the subjects he’d studied. How it had always behaved in the exact same manner up to and after death. He was convinced, even though he had no evidence, that the virus had to mutate at some point; all viruses did.
Maybe that’s what I’m looking at now, Danton thought as he peppered the three with his AK-47.
It was how any organism thrived in unsuitable conditions. Ziggy was always a danger, but over the past few years had become less and less prevalent.
Maybe something had happened to make it adapt and that’s where these guys had come from.
Danton couldn’t worry about that now. They were still coming at him and if the pack were big enough they might be trying to make him use up all his ammo. But why sacrifice themselves?
Danton had a guess. They were doing the same thing he was and it was instinctual: protecting their master. They were throwing themselves at the danger in order to protect the one that lead or created them. As soon as he’d sensed they were near he’d automatically done the same thing.
But they were zombies. He was still alive—wasn’t he?
His heart pounded in his chest and he could feel his blood surging inside him, but now that he saw the similarities between him and the dead people he was shooting at he couldn’t be sure.
Maybe the virus had adapted to mimic life.
Better leave this line of thought to the brains.
They seemed to be concentrated around a building on the corner ahead. Danton hoped they weren’t smart enough to be trying a bait-and-switch play. He launched a grenade into the crowd and they scattered.
He wasn’t sure how he would tell which one was the head ziggy, but he had a sense he’d know it when he saw it.
The building looked as though it had been shelled a few times, that it would topple like a house of cards with one good shove.
Danton loped inside, his AK leading the way. A ziggy at the top of the first flight of stairs leapt out of the way as he chased it with a trail of bullets. He was about to go up, but those stairs didn’t look right. Danton kicked at the first one and it crumbled like it was made of cardboard.
That meant that they were setting a trap.
Danton dived back out of the building as a center foundation gave. The whole thing groaned and fell into the building next to it. The ziggies nearest him became agitated, some throwing their heads back and howling, some clawing at the air, all of them converging on the remaining structure.
It groaned but stood. Danton whirled and squeezed the trigger on the grenade launcher, but it clicked on empty. He tossed it away and grabbed the AK, still slung over his shoulder. He didn’t have enough rounds in the magazine to take them all on and didn’t have enough time to reload, so he fled into the building, hoping to buy himself time and catch them in a pinch-point.
But if their master were in here, they might fight even more furiously to protect him.
He ran down the main hall and stopped at the stairs. There was no way to figure where the master would have gone, but he guessed it would have gone to high ground. Maybe the roof to see how the battle went.
Danton threw open the door and pounded up the stairs. Despite its load being significantly lightened by the absence of the grenade launcher, the duffel was still heavy. He couldn’t afford to give it up, though. Who knew if these things knew how to fire weapons?
The door pressed open behind him before it could shut and Danton turned and fired until the AK clicked on empty. He didn’t have time for headshots, but if these things had enough of an appreciation for bullets to dive out of the way when fired upon then this should buy him some time.
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