David Bernstein - Machines of the Dead

“How can that be?” Jack asked, horrified.

“It just is. I the checked the basement, the roof, looked in and behind things. I checked every apartment up and down.”

Zaun’s faced started to redden. He slowly shook his head.

“You did your best, man. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

“I was a coward.” Zaun said, looking away.

“Don’t say that; you were amazing, killing all those undead and trying to save people.”

“That’s just it, Jack,” Zaun said, turning back to meet his gaze. “I didn’t try to save or help anyone… not at first.”

“When the shit really started to hit the fan, after all those people were mowed down on the Brooklyn Bridge, I flipped out. I hid in my apartment. I heard screams in the halls. People pounded on my door, but I was too afraid to answer it. I had already stocked up on food. I was an island, self-sustaining. From what I saw, it was every man for himself. Even the police scattered. Can’t blame them, they’re only human. It was a lawless period, brief as it was. People were acting crazy, and the dead were growing in number, coming back to fucking life. The news had said it wasn’t an airborne virus, but who really knew, right?”

Jack felt bad for the guy; for anyone caught in the city. It seemed like the world was ending. Maybe it had, at least for the citizens in Manhattan. No one could predict how a person would react to such an extreme occurrence; the dead rising up, looking for human flesh. Zaun shouldn’t blame himself for how he reacted to the events that unfolded, that were still unfolding. Sure, there would be scumbags who would take the opportunity to do evil, to rape and murder, but short of that, a person couldn’t get down on themselves for trying to survive.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jack told him. “The whole city was, and is, in chaos; and from the looks of it, you were one of the smarter ones. People should’ve stayed inside, listened to the warnings; stayed off the streets.”

“Yeah,” Zaun agreed, “but in order to be able to stay in your home, you’d need supplies. Make sure you had enough of the essentials. No one knew how long this epidemic, the imprisonment, would last. The elderly were especially vulnerable. Mr. Zarnof came to my door, asking for help. I pretended I wasn’t home. Found him outside my door, dead. He wasn’t bit or anything. I think he just died of a heart attack or something.”

Zaun stopped talking. Tears were rolling down his face. “I still can’t close my eyes without seeing dead bodies, hearing the cries of people as they suffered.”

Jack hadn’t thought about what it was like from a topsider’s point of view. He had been one of the lucky ones, removed from the immediate chaos, the front lines. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Zaun so down, let alone cry.

“You did what you had to do in order to survive,” he said. “You did the best you could, and what was right for you.” Jack didn’t necessarily believe everything of what he was saying, but wanted Zaun in a positive frame of mind. He, himself, had no idea how he would have acted if he had been left in his apartment, his wife one of the undead. He would like to believe he would have tried to help people, but not having had to endure it directly, he truly didn’t know. Zaun was more of a loner, having no family and not many friends. The guy only did what his mind was capable of doing: dig in and survive.

“Only when I stopped hearing things,” Zaun continued, “did I finally get up the nerve to leave my apartment. I hated myself for being such a coward. I was relieved by the quiet; that there was no one left to save. I thought about killing myself, seppuku style, the way a samurai would have offed himself, but that was only deserving of a true warrior.

“I forced myself to eat, pushed my self-loathing down deep, realizing I could do nothing to change the past. I decided to see if there was anyone still alive. But the whole damn building was filled with the dead or undead. I was angry, pissed off. I hacked those undead fucks to pieces, but I quickly found that the only way to stop them was to separate the head from the body. I put all my years of training to use, except it wasn’t like fighting people. The undead were slow and stupid. Only in numbers were they formidable, intimidating.

“I started with our floor, clearing out the undead, dumping the bodies down the elevator shaft. I went through each apartment, looking for survivors, gathering up supplies, food as well as soap and whatnot. There were so many of the undead; I had to take breaks regularly. Sometimes, I’d have to run away, and then half the floor would be after me, chasing me into the stairwell.

“Then, one day when I was walking down the stairs, I heard a woman cry out. I ran down, saw her enter on the third floor. A zombie was on her tail, a kid of all things. I lopped his head off, then followed her to her apartment. She wouldn’t let me in, so I bashed the door down. She was crazy, all scratched up and bleeding. She didn’t want to come with me. When I went to grab her, she bit me.” Zaun paused, staring at the bite mark on his arm. “I was so angry. So pissed… I… backhanded her. Raised my sword…”

Jack closed his eyes. “You had no choice. She was already dead.”

“But that’s just it,” Zaun cried. “I didn’t kill her. I left her alone.”

Jack opened his eyes. He didn’t know what to say.

“I probably should have killed her, but I was so full of rage. She’d killed me, and I wasn’t about to allow her the easy way out. So I left her to die a slow, painful death.

“I came back to my place, scrubbed the wound, poured hydrogen peroxide over it, then bleach. Burned like a motherfucker. Later that night, I was already feeling tired, drained, but not like I was when I was hacking up those ungodly bastards. I was drained as if I had no strength, as if I hadn’t eaten in days. I was so hungry and all I kept thinking about was meat. Human meat. If I had the strength, I think I would’ve gone back down there, found the woman and started tearing into her. As it was, I was too wiped out. I was so hungry, Jack. Hungry enough that I had to fight against eating my own flesh.

“Eventually I started hallucinating. I saw my mother. She came to me. Told me everything would be all right. That I’d be with her soon.” Zaun was crying again. “It was the only good thing that happened to me.”

“Well, I’m here now, buddy,” Jack said, patting Zaun on the leg. “The past is the past. It’s time to move forward. You’re looking better, but you need to rest. No more talking, too much stress is no good. I’m going to let you sleep, then get you up in a few hours for some chow.”

Jack was pleased to see his friend coming along quickly. It was probably his age, good eating habits, genetics, and the fact that he was in shape. He didn’t want to spend anymore time topside than was necessary, but he also didn’t want to scare the guy. He hadn’t told him about the possible plans to nuke the city. Jack wasn’t leaving without his friend, and if the city was leveled, he and Zaun probably wouldn’t suffer for more than a few seconds at best.

Caught in a tough situation, Jack left the room, hoping the good doctor had come up with a way to solve the bot problem and alert the military before they decided to blow up Manhattan.

While Zaun was recovering, Jack scoured the building, killing undead and looking for survivors. He had to see for himself that there was no one left alive. He didn’t find anyone of course, but did manage to kill a number of undead to the point he could no longer find anymore. He wanted to make the building as safe as possible for when he and Zaun made the trek to the sixth floor supply closet. But it was more than that. Jack felt as if he had made a safe zone for other survivors. There had to be more in the city, and by chance if any of them made it to the building, they would be able to have a place that was undead-free; a safe haven from the city’s ugliness.