Craig DiLouie - The Infection

Sheena X. He decided to go to her house, help her barricade the place, and wait out this zombie apocalypse together. He was rolling a fantasy of them sharing the pain of their parents being dead—followed by the realization that that they are in love, and a huge make-out scene—when the Infected came running out of the darkness, howling and reaching for him.

Todd ran in a blind panic. Jesus, he thought. These people want to kill me. The very idea sapped the energy from his legs. Made him suddenly want to sleep. His mind swam in panic. If only, he thought. It’s not fair, he thought. His lungs were gasping for air on razor blades. The gun, he thought. He remembered the pistol in his hand.

He slowed and turned as the first Infected bore down on him, a big man wearing a T-shirt soaked through with blood and sweat, emitting a long, terrible shriek. Todd squeezed the trigger on reflex, forgetting to aim. The bullet entered the side of the man’s head just above the ear, instantly turning half his skull into a spray of blood and skull fragments. The Infected staggered, shaking his head vigorously as if sneezing, shaking free pieces of brain, and then collapsed. The death of this monster struck Todd as nothing short of a miracle.

“Yeah!” he cried through a haze of gun smoke.

More came howling out of the darkness. He had to wait until they got close so he could be sure that he would hit them. But if they got too close, he would panic and run and then they would get him. Todd blanked out his mind, breathing heavily through his nose and trying to slow his heart rate, and pictured the scene as an online first-person shooter game, letting his hand-eye reflexes take over, shifting his aim and firing as the Infected approached.

“I am invincible,” he sang off key, wishing for a soundtrack, then stopped, unable to remember the rest of the words to the song. The fight was over in seconds. He blinked, surveying the bodies of five Infected lying on the ground moaning and thrashing.

He approached the twitching bodies carefully, watching for any who might make a last-second movie lunge and deliver a mortal wound that would be just payment for his hubris. One of them was a police officer. Todd was curious about him because he shot the man three times but the cop kept getting up and coming at him until the last bullet destroyed the right side of his head. The mystery was solved easily; the man wore a bullet-proof vest.

Todd pulled the vest off the man and put it on himself. It was a little big and it was heavier than he thought it would be, but he loved it. He had seen them on TV, of course, and had always wanted one. He thought it made him look bigger, bulkier, tougher than he usually felt when he looked in the mirror. He sensed that he could be good at this—surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

Looks like school is out forever, he thought. The thought almost made him happy.

He continued his march. After a while, the sky began to lighten; dawn was coming. He had to get off the street soon. His heart pounded as he approached Sheena X’s house.

Wait until she sees me in this gear, he told himself. She’ll be all over me.

The porch light was on, as if she were expecting him. Lights were on in the house. The door was ajar. He rang the doorbell and waited.

Todd backed away, shaking his head.

“Aw, Sheena…”

The screen door banged open and Sheena X stumbled out of the house, twitching and gray-faced, the front of her T-shirt soaked with blood, her hair still combed over one eye.

“No,” he said. “Oh, no.”

“ Rah, ruh ,” she snarled.

“I’m sorry, Sheena.”

Todd raised the gun and fired. The bullet punctured her skull and splashed her brains onto the screen door. She collapsed instantly, leaving a puff of smoke and bloody mist hanging in the air.

The crash of the gunshot echoed down the street and mingled with millions of similar sounds occurring all over the city, rising up to the sky as a single chaotic roar.

Todd sat on the ground in a daze, unsure of what he felt. Then it all suddenly hit him. Within moments, he was shaking uncontrollably and hugging his knees and bawling.

The three survivors stand on the hospital roof and watch the growing fire consume western Pittsburgh. The sky over the east glows red as buildings continue to burn downtown, soar up into the sky on powerful convection currents, and rain back down as particulates. The air is thick with heat and smoke and falling ash. The night is alive with gunfire and screams.

“Paul was right,” Anne says. “It’s huge. And it’s moving.”

“Gone,” Wendy says, her voice cracking. “It’s all gone.”

Sarge says, “We’ve got to get out of here. Tonight.”

The survivors race in and out of their rooms in the glow of LED lanterns, throwing bags and supplies into the corridor. Their shadows flicker across the walls. Shouts echo in the gloom. A box rips open and cans spill and roll noisily across the floor. A handful of bullets clatter and roll like marbles. The survivors know they cannot stay here and yet none of them want to go outside. They never go outside at night, but they have no choice. The fire has produced a massive migration. Pittsburgh is on the move. The fire is flushing thousands of people out of their hiding places and into the streets to mingle with the fleeing Infected. The numbers of Infected must be increasing exponentially, by the minute, and they are all headed this way in a tidal wave.

“What about Ethan?” Todd says, panting.

Sarge glances at Anne, who shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

“He’s coming with us,” he growls, glaring at her.

“Goddamn right he’s coming,” Paul says.

“I got him,” says Sarge.

The soldier grabs the front of Ethan’s shirt and pulls him to his feet, cursing as the man instantly spews a small bucket of spaghetti and red wine onto the floor. Then he heaves the man up and over one shoulder and his rucksack over the other like a counterbalance.

The survivors hustle down the stairs in a train, moving as fast as they can with as little light as possible, and begin dumping supplies at the entrance of the hospital. Sarge drops Ethan in a heap in the vestibule and turns to scan the outside parking lot using his rifle’s night vision close combat optic. The optic amplifies ambient light thousands of times and creates an image rendered in green. He can make out grainy figures marching through the parking lot.

“Where’s our ride?” Todd says, his voice edged with panic.

Steve and Duck went to retrieve the Bradley, and if they do not come back, the survivors will be stranded. And probably die.

“It’s coming,” Sarge hisses. “I’ll cover here. The rest of you: Go get the rest of our shit.”

Anne touches his shoulder, asking the unspoken question, Do you need me for anything?

“Light,” he says.

They have flashlights, but turning one on right now would be like ringing a dinner bell. Instead, he needs fire—flares, Molotovs. He does not have to explain this. Anne knows what to do.

He suddenly thinks about Wendy, his heart racing. It was always nothing to take care of himself, but now he is worried about her, too. It is hard to aim a rifle when your heart is pounding in your chest. He pushes his worries roughly out of his mind and breathes slowly and steadily for a few moments until he has regained complete control of his nerves.

Crowds of Infected flow through the cars in the parking lot, squealing and shoving and howling. A pack of them breaks off with strident cries, pounding towards the hospital, apparently curious about what might be inside, their eyes gleaming bright green in Sarge’s optic.