Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 8

  “Okay, so what's our role?”

  “A bit up in the air right now. He agrees the boat would be a mighty big help, give our friends something to focus on. My guess is we motor out, draw some off, and Bill blows the tank. This gets everyone’s attention and they come running in our direction. All this distraction clears a lane for them, they storm the street, mayhem ensues, and they make for the water. Apparently, both are very good swimmers and hope to use the current to get to us.”

  We both stood in silence just staring at the village. All I could think was damn that's a lot of zombies! The wind died and the stench rose. Go decay go!

  “So, Robert, even with their super cool toys, what do you think?”

  “Well…we need to put on a good show and I mean a really good show. Okay, we get all the attention, herd the zombies, and the tank goes. If they keep their cool, they just might make it.”

  Robert was back on the radio and I was getting nervous. How can we screw up this time? Yes, Robert and I had our moment on the glory road and without the fancy armament, but not the massed horde these guys will have.

  “This is it.” I heard Robert say. Here we go. It would be a run in broad daylight and ASAP. Why wait for more to gather? They would like to see where they were running. Our job would be to do our best to distract our mainland friends, then a big ass boom and we meet somewhere in the middle. Great! We had a nice ambiguous plan with a couple of hundred zombies thrown in. Whoever Bill and Barbara were, they were right. Once I got on deck and scanned the town, it was go time. I could see most of their escape path and all these zombies running as if to block them. Huh?

  My mood was not as enthusiastic as my Captain was. Too many unknown variables, but hell, best shot is best shot. So...we made a show of it. Robert wanted to have as much control of the boat as possible and opted for no sails. Sirens blowing and me shouting, waving, and dancing, probably over the top since a little wave would have gotten the same results. Getting closer than we ever have been before, they were whipped into a frenzy. If only the ladies had liked me like this when they weren't dead! They followed us en masse. Then another funny thing happened. We got very close, maybe ten feet and it was more than clear they desperately wanted us, but no one really tried. Not one of the hundreds of undead made a concerted effort to jump to us. A bunch were pushed in by the ever increasing crowd and it would have to be a standing jump since the masses made a running start impossible, but no one really tried. It was as if they instinctively knew we were just out of reach. We were the only show in town, but they loved us and followed. When we got about even with the tank, I began to think of more immediate concerns; like just how big a boom it would be, I mean there's boom and BOOM.

  “Hey, Robert, about how big of an explosion are we considering here?” As if in answer, the radio crackled. “We are go. Firing at target.”

  We looked at each other and dove for the deck. Probably a good thing too, because I don't think Bill wanted to hurt us, but he had his shot and that was the time. It was lightning fast. The heat and pressure ripped over us and I instantly smelled something like burnt hair. The boat dangerously listed to the opposite side. Thank God, we didn't have the sails up. From my angle face down on the deck, I could see zombies on fire; just roasted in half, still running towards the flame. As I watched in amazement at the self-immolations, this little annoying voice in the back of my mind was saying, ‘I always thought you counted to three or something.’

  The boat was a mess. The rigging had taken a serious hit. Once again, great judgment about the sails, Robert. Without saying a word, he jumped up and turned the boat around, kicked her in high gear and cruised back up the channel. I stood on the bow. It didn't take long to see Bill and Barbara running down the road. They were a killing machine. By akimbo, weapons in both arms, I mean fucking AKIMBO! Blazing away, short controlled bursts, one goal, intense focus and they made it with ease. Not a single zombie got even close. Both entered the water with large black duffels that looked really heavy when they were running and I was surprised when they floated.

  We pulled them on board.

  “I’m thinking...Three. Could be wrong, but doesn't someone go one, two, three before you ignite the world?” I think Robert was pissed!

  Hoping to diffuse the situation, I said, “Hi, I'm John, and not only did you almost kill us, but you really fucked up Robert's boat, a boat he happened to appreciate a great deal!”

  The guy gave me a sullen look, “Hi, I'm Bill, this is Barbara. Pleased to meet you.” He extended his hand.

  I took it. “Thanks, okay. Formalities aside. Bites? Cuts? Scratches? You know we will find out sooner or later.” Wow, that actually sounded like I have done this before.

  She was quickly examining herself with much interest and excitement. “I’m good, I think, and you, Bill?”

  He just looked out toward the village with its teaming undead, eyes not really focusing on anything. “Holy shit! We did it! Barbara, your calm, controlled bursts. You were magnificent. You never skipped a beat.” Pride just welled up in his voice.

  Robert and I stared at each other. These guys are really clueless. Don’t they know they just nuked us and are happy as clams?

  Nonplussed, I looked at Robert, and then to Bill and Barbara. “Okay, you guys up for a real Maine lobster dinner?”

  B&B, as we started to call them, were both in their late fifties or early sixties. Bill was about my height, medium build with a narrow face that reminded me of Vincent Price. Barbara was short, maybe five-two, thin with long blonde hair. Turns out, friends had hooked them up and their first date was a moose-hunting trip. They would celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary on the fourth of July.

  That was that, really nothing more to be said. Yes, we had work to do on the boat, but we had a safe place to do it and we helped save two lives, not a bad day overall. When they opened the duffel bags, out popped two machine guns, Bill later mentioned something about them being German made. All right, more machine guns! First, with Roy and Hammer, now these guys. How does every other person in Maine seem to have automatic weapons? How come I didn’t get mine? Yes, I was not born here, but I had been in state for seventeen years. Surely, I qualify.

  So as it turned out, they saw the storm clouds coming, put the obvious one and one together and knew what was going down. Like with us, it just went to pot too fast. B&B had it going good. They were refinishing the upper two floors of their store, a nineteenth century warehouse, when everything ended. They were going to rent out the third floor and take the top for themselves. Hang out, party on the roof, with incredible views, and sell all kinds of stuff to the tourists, whom they genuinely liked, and live the highlife.

  “When it came, it was like a tidal wave, calm one minute, then everything is just gone,” Barbara described the zombie overthrow of God’s Haven, Maine. One second, it was okay to be on the street, the next no, never.

  They had seen the downfall from a deeply personal level. Twenty-three years in the same small town. Same people in the same coffee shop, same fishmonger, butcher, dentist, best friends... gone. Bye, Bye. Now it was all Brutal Planet. Robert and I were kept in transition, and shed our losses. The hurt and the pain were not going away, but we weren’t dwelling on it. We had to keep moving, no time to think or reflect. Maybe we had it easier. On to the next adventure. I hope I make it to the next round. It was around now that I think I started to like fucking up zombies. My body count was getting acceptable.

  Yes, I guess I could be hard-core. It still just bugged me that we were going out like this. It did not seem fair or just. Maybe if an alien species with advanced technology invaded, it would be okay, but not like this?

  June 3rd – 4th

  I decided to keep my word and spend what time I had observing them. Besides, the scientist in me was dying to see how zombies behave when not agitated. I mostly did this from the top of the tower, but occasionally I crept to the boat for a closer look. I tried to stay out of sight since I wanted to se
e them au naturel. Once spotted, it generally took around an hour for them to calm down, but some never did. They just stood there, glaring or pacing back and forth, always looking to the particular place they had last seen me.

  I set up a small tarp I found in the tool shed for shade and sat for hours with my binoculars, video camera and notebook. Just observing and letting my mind wander down certain paths, other areas were off limits for now. The balcony became my semi-private sanctuary. Sometimes, I would stare out to sea, listen to the surf and pretend I was on vacation and Elizabeth was taking a nap back at our hotel room. Once she woke, we would go for a nice seafood dinner and maybe take a sunset stroll along the beach. The future would be bright; I was losing weight, I had tenure, grant money and at least two articles ready to go. If I stayed with this fantasy long enough, it became real to me. The people I loved were alive. I would get together with my family for the fourth of July and introduce them to Liz. Everything was okay. It felt good to relax, breathe, and dream. The world was normal again. Then something would distract me and I would turn around.

  The Buddhist have a discourse called the Upajjhatthana Sutta. In it are, The Five Remembrances: I will lose my youth, my health, everything I hold dear and beloved and then life itself, by the very nature of being human. But there is a fifth: I am the owner of my actions and good or bad I shall become their heir. What a lineage I have sired over the last eleven days and I am no longer afraid. I’m going to make it through this.

  Eventually, I started to give some of the more distinctive zombies’ names. There was the School kid zombie, holding one of those thick candy canes that places like Ye Old Candy Shoppe sells and dressed in what appeared to be an authentic British school uniform, similar to the guy from AC/DC. He had most of his right face gone and just walked from one end of the wharf to another holding on to the candy cane which was now cemented to this hand. There was Spinner, a young topless woman with one breast missing who only moved in a spinning fashion, almost as if she was dancing. There was Meatloaf, missing his left arm but looking exactly like the rocker, I mean the young Meatloaf not the Fight Club Meatloaf. Lurch, nuff said. One of my favorites was this dude in a business suit who still had his thick black framed glasses on. He would do the same circuit around town, only stopping when he got to the edge of the wharf, then stand there for a few minutes looking around with this kind of ‘What the fuck’ look and then off again. Perhaps the strangest was this one dude who looked like an old homeless guy and didn't quite act like a zombie. He would come and go and moved around more than the others did. His skin didn't seem gray, had no visible wounds and a homeless guy in this part of Maine? I pointed him out to the others when they came to visit. We were evenly split over whether he was actually one of the undead or not. Really weird. At dinner, we made up stories as to how they got here and who they really were, but never once did we imagine that given the opportunity, they would not tear us to pieces.

  We didn't shoot them, just be a waste of ammunition, although I really wanted to play around with the machine guns just for shits and grins. There was only one exception, some poor schmuck stuck in a small Plexiglas booth that sold tickets for Cptn' Ahab's Whale Watching Cruses. We figure he was in there when the shit hit the fan and had to watch the world come to an end with nothing to do but sit, stare at a bunch of stupid brochures and wait for death. We couldn’t see how he became infected. I figured we owed it to him, and for Bill, it was an easy shot. What really bothered me was that we all knew what was happening and yes, it went way faster than anticipated, but whale watching? WTF?

  The longer that I watched and learned, the more grave our situation was becoming. It's not that the crowd on shore was growing to dangerous proportions, if there was a such a thing, or they were going to find a way to get to us. We had all assumed decay would rapidly take its course and we could reclaim the mainland. Just give it a little time, maybe six months and they will be taken care of was the general idea. The big money question was, how much time? Everything I now saw suggested that the time was going to be longer than expected, maybe a lot longer.

  I had always thought they went around looking for prey or generally screwing off like a zombie, but no, not these guys. During the day, the only time I could see them, they just kind of hung out. They didn't move, explore or wander off to find the local mall. Most laid around or sat down. Maybe because we were so close, we kept them transfixed. Maybe they were kind of lazy, their bodies not wanting to expend energy needlessly. I mean it's not like they stood there staring at us. They just didn't cover a lot of territory. They definitely got excited when we were out in the open and moving around. Occasionally, you would see one or two move off, like to chase a bird or something, but for the most part, every morning it seemed to be the same old gang, plus maybe another forty or so. You could attract more, such as when we blew up the propane tank, and some would drift off but the majority would just hang out until something else distracted them.

  I also noted that they tended to stay in the shade. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but the more I watched, the more I realized this was part of their nature. An attribute pronounced during the hottest part of the day, like some part of their reptile brain was reacting to the heat. The bigger more intact zombies tended to get the best spots, just pushed the smaller out into the sun. This whole conservation of energy thing was bugging me. The more I watched the more I was concerned. I was really starting not to like the trend.

  On the second day, I noticed something else. When we exploded the propane tank, because of its proximity to the water, we killed a lot of fish. These fish were now washing up on shore and the zombies had found some and were eating them. It never occurred to me that they ate anything but people. If they ate fish, what else are they eating?

  Later that day, I got part of my answer. The big guy I called Lurch always hung out near this tourist trap crystal shop. It had a nice big awning which gave lots of shade and he was usually sitting on the corner which I imagined had more air circulation, i.e., cooler. I decided to play with him and see if I could get his attention. I took a compact from one of the upstairs bathrooms, and using the mirror, tried to get a reflection off the shop window or some of the crystals inside. Kind of like the game, I used to play in grade school with my watch face and the blackboard. I thought the distance was too far but I was bored so what the hell. It took me about thirty minutes to get it right but eventually I did get some of the crystals in the store window to reflect. Lurch didn’t notice but another zombie did, this one a young girl. She ran toward the window and collided with Lurch. I don't know if this startled him, maybe he was deep in thought, but he suddenly became animated, gave a huge roar and attacked the girl. I couldn't believe his speed and ferocity. He simply grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her up and tore a monstrous chunk out of her neck.

  Okay, about Lurch. He is big, white, maybe twenty-five to thirty, well over six-five, short blond hair, total muscle and, with the tattoos, has a very Aryan thing going on. One thing that bothered me was that Lurch had, at all times, this huge erection. You see most of his khakis were in shreds and well, there he was. The piercings actually went with the overall look quite well. Was the Limbic System still working?

  Squirming in his arms, she looked like an extra large doll. He then threw her to the ground, grabbed one of her arms and tore it from her body in a mighty twisting motion. He stared at the arm for a couple of seconds and then started to eat it. What the hell? The girl remained motionless for maybe a minute. When she started to crawl, he threw her arm away and pounced on her. I heard him roar again as he started gnawing at her hip. He kept this up till he could pop the femoral head and twist and tear the leg away. Satisfied, he staggered off, eating the leg. Several others noticed this and attacked what remained of the girl. Fuck, they eat each other. In my time at the lighthouse, I never saw this happen again. If they could use each other as a food source, this shit is going to last a lot longer than anyone has suspected. Then things
got worse.

  In the late afternoon, a storm rolled in off the ocean. The temperature cooled down and in fifteen minutes, it started to rain, big heavy squalls of the stuff. I was just about to seek shelter in the downstairs office when I decided to check out how zombies like rain. Zombies like rain. Almost all of them were now standing, heads tilted up to the rain, mouths wide open. Lurch had actually gone under a waterspout, just letting the stream flow into his mouth. Could he drown like that? Zombies hydrate! We are in deep shit.

  At dinner that night, I talked about Lurch and what had happened. I didn’t go into the other stuff until I had more data. Bill and Barbara hadn't seen them attack each other but admitted never really watching the creatures. While they were trapped in their store, they thought it was best to stay out of sight, probably a very good idea. Robert and I hadn’t had the opportunity to observe them in any detail and at the time, I really didn’t care how zombies interacted. Bill did tell us about one woman whose head was nearly torn off and she flopped in such a way that she was always looking up.

  “She must have caught a glimpse of us or something because all she did was to circle our building and paw at the walls. Others would come over and see what’s up but they soon lost interest. She did this for days and days and days. There were a couple of times I was up on the roof at night and I could still hear her.” He leaned back, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. I thought he was going to say something else, but Bill just seemed to drift off into thought.

  “Yeah, we noticed that. They just lock on to something till distracted. It’s almost like a child fixated on some flashy toy till mommy gives him something else to look at.” Robert reached out and poured himself another glass of wine, looked at me and winked.

  “Some of them lock on and never get distracted.” We hadn’t talked about why I did not drink, but he knew and now he was just busting my balls. After all we had been through, he was my closest living friend and earned the right, oh, but I will retaliate.