David Bernstein - Machines of the Dead

The undead’s body fell from the window, Jack helping it along as he moved to the side as best he could, but the thing latched onto him, wrapping its one arm around his neck, like a distressed child holding onto its mother. Embraced in a hug, the undead brought its mouth to Jack’s throat. He got a hand up quickly, pushing his palm against the thing’s chin, keeping its mouth shut and jaws away. With his other hand, Jack reached for his knife. He withdrew the weapon from its sheath, gripped it tightly and shoved it into the zombie’s neck, just under its chin. The knife went in easily, but the corpse kept fighting. Shit, the blade wasn’t long enough. He pulled the knife out, then shoved it into the thing’s right eye socket-the eyeball bursting-pushing it in up to the hilt. The zombie shuddered, then released its grip and fell to the ground, landing a few feet from the M4, which at some point had slipped off his boot. Jack thought about going back down for it, but the barrel was bent at a 90-degree angle, now useless.

All that remained of his weapons were his gore-covered knife and the T aser, which only had three re-loads.

Jack pulled himself into the window, crawled into the supply closet and sat against the wall, breathing heavily and severely disappointed. That was only one zombie and look what happened, but he had made it into the building.

Sitting there, Jack took one of the water bottles from his pack and gulped half of its contents. His mouth was exceedingly dry. He would have to conserve from now on, not knowing how long he would be gone from the bunker, or if he’d find any suitable drinking-water in the building. If it wasn’t bottled, he wasn’t ingesting it.

Replacing the bottle to his pack, Jack rested a moment longer. The supply closet was dark, the only light coming from the window. He saw shelves lining the walls to either side, but half the room was shrouded in gloom. Jack made his way over to the door, felt for the light switch and flipped it on. Nothing happened. He tried the switch again with the same results. Either the electricity was off, or the super hadn’t gotten around to changing the bulb.

Taking out his flashlight, a Maglite mini, Jack surveyed the room. On the shelves were cleaners, mop heads, boxes, and leather workmen’s gloves, nothing useful. In the corner next to him were two mops with wooden handles. Wherever the bucket was, it wasn’t in the closet. Most buildings used the basements to store supplies, but for some reason, this building had an additional supply closet on the sixth floor.

Something bumped the door, startling Jack. Then he heard scratching, the same kind of scratching he heard when his wife was pawing at the bedroom door. The noise from the window breaking must have alerted a member of the undead. Hopefully, it was only one. What if there were more? A hallway full? H is mission would be over. His journey was looking more and more perilous, and more and more like he should turn around and go back underground.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t go back yet, n ot without first checking for survivors. And if anyone was alive, it had to be Zaun. That guy was a paranoid dude, and a fighting machine. Jack smiled, thinking about his friend, almost forgetting about the zombie outside the door. He had to work his way at least, to the 23rd floor, Zaun’s floor, and the floor he and Jess had lived on.

Grabbing one of the mops, Jack broke off the mop-end. From there he took out his knife and began whittling away at the splintered end. When he was finished, he had a crudely made spear; perfect for keeping a zombie at bay, or spearing it in the head.

Taking the other mop, he loosened the metal bracket that held the mop-head on, then broke the stick in half. Now Jack had a bludgeoning weapon; a misshapen battle mace, and something he could use to bash in the heads of the undead. It wasn’t ideal, but it looked like it would do the job.

With the spear tucked between his back and the pack, and the mace in hand, Jack took a deep breath and opened the door.

A lone zombie stood outside the door, coming forward with shuffling footsteps like an elderly person in need of a walker. It didn’t hesitate at seeing Jack holding a weapon. It didn’t duck or dodge when he swung the weapon. The crude mace’s metal head struck the zombie on its left cheek, slicing open the skin and shattering its top row of teeth. The zombie lost its balance for a moment, slamming into the doorframe, but it righted and came forward. Jack raised the stick over his head, not having enough room to swing it the way he wanted to, and brought the mace down, over and over, onto the zombie’s head, until the forehead caved in and the undead thing collapsed.

He stood over the corpse, hands shaking and heart thumping almost painfully. He didn’t recognize the dead man, but if he had he would’ve acted the same, like he did with the super. Most of the building’s residents were strangers to each other. It was the same all over the Metropolitan Area. People had family and friends living here and there, and that’s who a person talked and spent time with. A very different picture than some of the smaller communities and towns Jack had visited, where a person knew his neighbor as well as every store clerk in town. Jack had become friends with Zaun, but everyone else living on the hall was a “hello” and a “goodbye.”

Jack did his best to scrape off the flesh caught in the crevices of the mace’s head, but small pieces, like food stuck between a person’s teeth, remained, and he wasn’t about to go picking them out with his fingers. Cleaning it as best he could, he stepped over the dead body and into the hallway. To his right, a few feet away, were two more dead bodies, both with their heads sliced cleanly off. He couldn’t know for sure if the deceased had been killed when they were alive, or un-alive, but maybe, along with electricity and destroying the brain, chopping off the head worked too. Made sense, he thought.

He wanted to call out, check apartments, but didn’t want to risk attracting more undead. And it might’ve been selfish, but he wanted to get to the twenty third floor and see if his friend was still alive. Together with Zaun, he would have a much better chance of rescuing people; of growing the group, making the task at hand even easier. He hoped to leave the apartment with a small army of weapon-carrying civilians. He never did discuss how many survivors he was allowed to bring back. Fuck it, he would bring as many as he could and if that were a problem, he’d mention the escape tunnel and have the refugees exit Manhattan through there.

Slowly and cautiously, Jack worked his way to the stairwell door. Looking through the narrow glass window, he couldn’t make out a thing. It looked like the electricity was out for the entire building. Clicking on his flashlight, he shined it through the window and saw that the immediate area was clear, up or down a flight, the stairs working in a vertical zigzag pattern could be a different story.

Jack pressed the push-bar as quietly as possible and opened the door. He shined the light down the stairs to the next landing and saw nothing, then did the same going up the stairs. He waited a moment, listening. The eerie silence was almost too much to bear, but considering what could’ve been waiting for him, he was thankful to hear nothing.

With the flashlight’s beam leading the way, Jack took each flight of stairs slowly and quietly. There would be no sneaking up on anyone or anything, the light giving him away. At each level, he peered through the glass into the sunlit hallways, making sure to turn the light off as he approached each one. So far, only floors 10 and 14 had a few undead on them, but almost every floor was littered with corpses, many of which had their heads severed, as well as arms and legs. To Jack, it looked like someone had come through and slaughtered person after person, or undead after undead, like some crazy character in an ultra-violent video game.