Earlier that night of the living...
Lisa leaned back in her seat. There was no solution to the problem of zombies, but she was determined to enjoy whatever moments of calm she could before the next disaster struck, and for the first time since this had all started, she relaxed.
Farah slept in the back of the Humvee, her husband dozing next to her. Helen refused to sleep, even inside the armored vehicle, and Lisa was almost honored to be riding shotgun. She had no literal shotgun, of course, but as long as she stayed in the car, the odds were lower that she would be killed and eaten, and that felt good.
Corporal Lewis idled next to her in the driver's seat. "The National Guard didn't exactly train us to fight zombies," he said, "but you'd think these guys have never played a video game in their lives." He stuck his head out the window and shouted to the other three soldiers. "We've got civilians now. Fortify this position."
"Two more from the north, sir!" one of the guardsmen shouted back.
"Are you sure this time?" the corporal yelled out the window. He gave a quick glance back at Lisa, who wished she could ignore the two figures stumbling into the headlights, rotting and groping. Corporal Lewis saw them. "Take them out, like I showed you."
Lisa was impressed to see the soldiers take down both zombies with controlled gunshots to the head.
Lewis wiped the sleep from his eyes. "I thought I was so lucky not to be in Iraq," he said. He acted with confidence, but up close, Lisa could see how frightened and tired he was.
"Are we the only survivors you've found?" she asked.
The corporal smiled weakly. "Threat assessment, huh? Good to find someone else who knows the score." The smile disappeared, and he stared off into the distance. "It's not good. We haven't had contact with any other units in about two hours. Our orders were to make sure the area is secure, keep the peace. They told us there was a disturbance, some kind of mass hysteria. I didn't think we were walking into a Raccoon City."
Lisa heard her hopelessness echoed back at her, but she stifled a little smile at the reference. Zombies were taking over the Earth, and she'd found a soldier trained by Resident Evil.
A younger soldier, Private Anderson, came to the window of the car and reported, "Sullivan and Berman are blocking off the alleys."
Lewis sat up and gripped his rifle. "Good. Watch the street. We leave them one way in, then wait until they take the bait."
Helen poked her head between the front seats. "What bait?"
Parked in the turnaround of a dead end street, there was nothing around but the humans and the car. With the alleys blocked, any arriving zombies would come between them and their only escape route. Lisa took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair. She didn't know when she would die, but this was starting to look like the place.
Corporal Lewis nodded at Private Anderson. "We're the bait, the guys with guns. Lure them in. Take them out."
Helen put her hand on Lewis's shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "Can we have guns too?"
"I'm not supposed to do that," said the corporal.
"Wait. I have this." Helen leaned back, reached into her purse and pulled out a blue pouch.
Even before Helen opened it, Lisa knew what was inside. "I can't believe you robbed the bank," she said. "I asked you not to." Then she went quiet. She'd been terrified in the vault of losing her job, but so much had happened since then, it didn't really matter anymore.
The things that had seemed so big, that had brought her so much fear her whole life seemed ridiculous now. A warm feeling rose up through her stomach and burst out of her mouth. She laughed.
Helen pulled another pouch from her bag and dumped its contents out on an empty seat. Private Anderson leaned in through the window to get a closer look at the money. "How much is that?"
Lisa knew. "Ten thousand, each bag." She also knew they wouldn't live to spend it. Helen had the right idea.
The soldiers looked at each other. Anderson spoke first. "They're not paying us enough to go through all this, sir."
Corporal Lewis leaned his rifle against the nearest set of cup holders. "What the hell." He nodded.
Kaveh drove across town as quickly as he could, but everything seemed to be against him.
For years, his truck had taken him everywhere, and he'd never had to bring it to the shop, never had a problem with it he couldn't fix. Now his left arm was having trouble working the steering wheel, and he'd corralled zombies into the pickup bed like day laborers, but they kept moving, throwing everything off balance.
He'd somehow managed to get Speedy sitting next to him in the cab, but his patient friend was gone, and the creature that had replaced him clawed at the upholstery.
"Stop it," Kaveh said. The words were barely English, but Speedy wouldn't have understood them anyway. Kaveh swerved along the empty road, trying to find the people firing those guns.
He followed street after street. So many of them were familiar, but none of his memories of things happening on them made sense anymore. He spotted a row of bodies to the left with their heads blown off, and he turned to drive past them.
Halfway through the turn, a building was still in front of him. Driving with one hand wasn't turning the truck sharply enough. He didn't panic. Zombies couldn't do that. He slammed on the brakes, but the heavy load in the back gave him too much momentum.
Everything stopped. Kaveh heard a noise and realized his chin was wedged against the horn.
He lifted his face. The windshield was shattered. His headlights were gone. Everything was dark except the moon.
He reached down to unhook his seat belt, not sure if he had anything to fear from car crashes. He twisted his deteriorating left arm around to open the door, finding the handle on the third grope, but the door didn't open.
On the other side of the cab, Speedy smashed through the window and climbed out slowly, stretching one limb at a time through the narrow opening with a strange amount of confidence and experience.
Kaveh knew he had to get out of the car. He pushed on the broken windshield until it came loose from the truck, then he grabbed the roof and pulled.
He tumbled onto the hood, and his shoulder landed where his truck was lodged against the wall. He used the brick wall as a guide and climbed off the crumpled hood.
He ran his hand along the wreckage of his truck. For so long, he'd counted on his good old Chevy. Now it was as dead as he was. He walked away.
What had he been doing? He looked around. The impact had scattered most of the other zombies across the block. A few had stopped moving, but the rest roamed the street, apparently unharmed. He saw a row of bodies on the ground with their heads blown off. He walked over to them and looked into their faces. They didn't mean anything.
Not far away, a gun went off.
The others heard the shot and didn't understand it, but Kaveh knew what it meant. He followed the noise, confident that food was ahead, moaning in anticipation.
"That's good," said Private Anderson. He squeezed his arms tighter around Helen and helped her aim the assault rifle. "You're a natural."
"One more thing," said Helen, slipping from his grasp, "a gun for my friend."
Lisa stood. She was the only one without a gun. Even Farah had abandoned her objections and stuffed a small 9mm pistol under her makeshift pillow.
Lisa lowered her head. Her secret was already out. There was no point trying to deny it now. "You don't want to give me a gun," she said. "I have epilepsy."
Helen put her arm around Lisa. "Come on, You're the one who's been saving our lives all day. If there was only one gun, I'd make them give it to you."
"Here, take my M4," said Anderson, and he held out his rifle.
Lisa took it.
He turned to Helen. "Let me show you something. If you like the gun, you'll love this." He flashed a charming smile, and Helen followed him out of sight to the back of the Humvee, apparently past her grief over Logan.
Lisa looked at the rifle. So many years afraid of zombies, and she'd never wielded something like this. It had taken the end of the world to get her here, but she knew what she had to do. She would be able to see what she was fighting now. She looked through the scope and removed the safety.
The rifle wouldn't distinguish between human and zombie. A tiny spasm while holding it could kill anyone near her. Her whole life, she'd never allowed herself to lose control because she'd been afraid of what might happen. Now the consequences had already been decided. They were all going to die, but she still had all the time until then. For the first time, she could do whatever she wanted.
She slipped the gun strap over her shoulder. With Kaveh, she'd let go for just a few seconds, and it had felt great. It only took a single moment to feel truly alive.
The weight of the gun gave Lisa a comforting feeling, something not unlike hope. Was there actually a chance they would make it out of this? That was crazy. She reengaged the safety. Her body flooded with emotions, and a noise came out, halfway between crying and laughing.
Corporal Lewis walked up. "I think we're ready," he said. "Sullivan's got the high ground, and Berman's taking the first shift on point." He looked at her. "Are you okay?"
Lisa stepped forward and kissed him on the mouth. It was as good a thing to live for as any.
He broke the kiss. "What are--"
"Life's too short," said Lisa. "I've gotta live before I die."
Lewis smiled, the weariness still in his eyes. "Okay."
Lisa threw an arm around him, and they kissed again. Her stomach filled with butterflies, but they faded when she heard the moans. For just a second, she imagined it was what Helen and Anderson were doing behind the car, but there were too many voices.
She raised the rifle with her other arm and craned her neck to look through the sight. At the other end of the street, they had arrived.
"Zombies?" said the corporal. Lisa nodded. "Typical." He left the embrace. "Anderson, where are you?"
Lisa spotted Kaveh and Speedy at the front of the group and froze. They moaned, and the rest of the zombies joined in. What were they doing? Between them and her, Private Berman was yelling something, but he was too far away to understand. Lisa turned to Lewis and said, "This isn't gonna be like you think it will."
Anderson came out from behind the car with a new gun. "I'm here, sir. Oh, shit."
Helen came out behind him holding what looked like a rocket launcher.
Lewis's eyes went wide. "You gave her--" he shook his head. "Put that back." He turned and shouted at Berman, "Shoot them!"
"Wait," said Lisa. They were prepared to fight zombies but not whatever Kaveh was. "We should get out of here."
Helen shouldered the bazooka. "Let's get out of here."
Lewis shouted, "No, we stick to the plan. Anderson, protect the car, an escort mission, just like a game."
Lisa raised her voice. "This isn't a video game. It's not a movie. The rules don't always apply, but I know him." She pointed at Kaveh but didn't know how to explain. "That man isn't a zombie."
At the other end of the street, Kaveh saw Lisa. He stopped moaning, stopped shuffling forward and squinted his eyes at her. Behind him, close to a hundred zombies advanced slowly, with more arriving every minute.
"If he isn't, he will be soon," said Lewis. "Do you really want to argue about this now?"
"I really want us to live," Lisa yelled. "I changed my mind." Everything she'd ever known about zombies flashed through her brain, and she had one last idea. "Listen, this is absurd to even think, but what if there is a chance we could survive?"
"Get back in the Humvee," said Corporal Lewis. "It's the only way." He turned and ran towards Private Berman.
Kaveh squinted as his understanding got narrower. Was that Lisa? How did she get here?
"Stay back," repeated the soldier in the middle of the street. Kaveh's people all moaned together. Everyone in town seemed to hear them and came to join the feast, filling the intersection and swarming onto the dead end street. If he were able to feel, it would have made Kaveh proud.
A second soldier arrived and fired his gun at them. The noise whet Kaveh's appetite. Memories fought their way into his mind, but he ignored them. The mob pushed forward, beyond anyone's control, and he went along with it.
Between the jerking heads in front of him, he caught glimpses of the names on the uniforms of the men with guns. Now Berman started firing. A few of those heads went down, but the crowd kept moving forward.
Kaveh jostled back and forth against whoever was next to him as he tried to reach the food. He lost track of Speedy but kept on going.
The man named Lewis backed up, but the surge reached Berman. Someone grabbed his head. Berman kept firing his gun, but it wasn't any good. The zombies bit into him. Whoever was within reach tore off what they could and started eating.
Berman didn't scream, so it was hard to tell exactly when he was dead, but as Kaveh pushed in, he saw the body drop.
More guns went off, and the crowd ahead thinned. Climbing over their twisted corpses, Kaveh reached Berman's remains.
He crouched over the body, and a stampede of legs passed him by. He ignored the head as he'd seen so many zombies do. Instead, he jammed his fingers into the man's chest, felt his way between the ribs and ripped out his heart.
He took a bite. It was the first heart he'd eaten, and it was good. Blood poured down his sleeve as he squeezed more of it into his mouth and took another bite.
Kaveh saw bullets come down like rain through the zombie next to him. Guns were going off all around them.
The other zombie, a man in a suit like him, ate calmly until one of those bullets went through his head. It knocked him forward over Berman's body, and he dropped a half-eaten calf.
Kaveh reached for the leg, noticing he'd also been shot. He ate quickly and stood up, licking the blood off his fingers.
He spotted Lisa above the chaos, lying on top of the armored car with a rifle, firing into the crowd and shouting, "Come on, zombies, get closer." He went closer and saw the look in her eyes. She was happy.
She turned the gun in his direction, and they saw each other. She fired, and the bullets hit someone just to his left. She turned in another direction.
Bullets rained down again, and Kaveh saw a soldier above him on a balcony with "Sullivan" on his lapel.
Zombies stood under the balcony and groped at the air above their heads, but nobody was tall enough to reach it, so the soldier shot them one by one.
Kaveh didn't like that. He pushed back through the mob and got Berman's gun.
In the last second before he pulled the trigger, the soldier saw him. Kaveh watched Sullivan's face when he realized what was coming, saw the bullets carry jets of the man's blood onto the wall behind him. The scream he gave when he knew he'd been shot should have been chilling, but it only reminded Kaveh he had nothing in common with the human.
He turned to where the other shots were coming from. The herd of zombies were wandering towards the end of the street, where Lisa guarded the armored car with two more soldiers.
He noticed the faces looking out through the windshield of the car, and his mind tried to figure out who they were, but then he thought about the meal they would make. He weaved his way through the crowd to eat them. It was his purpose as a zombie.
Through the crowd, he saw Speedy pushing in the same direction but lost sight of him again.
When he reached the edge of the crowd, as close as any of his people got before they were gunned down, he caught Lisa's eyes again. Her excitement slipped for a second, and she stopped firing her gun.
"Helen," Kaveh heard her call over the moaning crowd, and she slapped the roof of the car next to where she was lying. The sunroof flipped open, and Helen stuck her head out, hefting something onto her shoulder.
For a fraction of a second, a noise drowned out the gunshots and the zombies.
Body parts flew everywhere. Kaveh had the vague idea he should duck, but he didn't.
Smoke clouded his vision. His ears rang. He staggered to where the armored car should have been, but the chaos had him turned around, and he ended up against a wall. Bullets flew past him, but he couldn't tell from where. He set off in a random direction to search the smoke for food.
Bodies were scattered through the street. Some moved, trying to reach nearby limbs. Were the limbs human or zombie? Kaveh couldn't tell anymore. People wandered past him in every direction, as confused as he was.
He thought he recognized someone, and he went that way. It looked like Lisa, but something was different. She walked slowly, her arms outstretched, her face frozen in a grimace. She looked like a zombie.
He pushed through the crowd to reach her. Other zombies watched her movements but didn't attack her like they would a human. Soon, he was close enough to hear her voice and tell it from the nearby moans. Her pitch was exactly what he'd heard all night, but curiosity pushed him closer. Was that a word?
Kaveh reached Lisa, and the random movements of the crowd around them shoved the two them against each other. For a second, he thought she looked at him. She moaned again.
"Braaaains," she said and looked up with the barest hint of a smile. He knew it. She was food.
He moaned instinctively. It should have identified her to the others, but there was too much going on. She looked at Kaveh and jerked her head. He didn't understand.
She pointed with her eyes in a direction and jerked her head the same way.
She stepped over the bodies of the truly dead and shuffled away in that direction. Kaveh followed. He wanted every part of her, right down to her bones.
He saw her come to a group of three zombies and try to walk around them, but they surrounded her.
"Braaains," she moaned, and they moaned back. One of them grabbed her by the shoulder. Kaveh moved in and shoved him. Lisa was his meal.
They tried to surround her again, but Kaveh stood between Lisa and the other zombies.
Lisa pulled the gun from her shoulder, aimed around Kaveh and murdered three of his people. "I can't believe this is working," she said with a smile. "Let's go."
She staggered towards the open end of the street, where the zombies were thicker, and Kaveh went after her. His hunger overshadowed any thoughts, and he struggled to focus so he wouldn't lose her in the crowd.
She walked just out of his reach, and nobody else identified her as a human, so there was nothing to slow her pace, until she saw someone else she knew. With a jerky motion, she tapped them on the shoulder, and Kaveh heard them moan.
Kaveh caught up to her and recognized Speedy. They were together again. Part of him wanted to speak, but there was nothing to say. Lisa jerked her head again and stumbled back out of reach.
Speedy moaned and followed, and Kaveh went with them.
Lisa made it around the corner. When Kaveh and Speedy joined her, they were past the zombies, facing a clear street.
Lisa turned around. "I can't believe I'm still alive." Her smile was radiant, and her laughter was fearless. "I know you two are zombies, but I wish you could feel what I feel right now. Thank you so much." She looked around. "Did anyone else make it?"
She turned to Speedy. "I'm glad you're kind of alive again, Fidel," she said. Speedy moved towards her. "Fidel?" She took the gun off of her shoulder. Kaveh stood still for some reason. He wanted Lisa for himself, but something stopped him from shoving his old friend out of the way.
"Are you in there?" Lisa backed away but didn't fire the gun. "You were with Kaveh. You should be like him."
Through the tiny sliver of understanding he had left, Kaveh knew what would happen when Lisa figured out what they were. He opened his mouth. He told her not to shoot, but he wasn't speaking English. It wasn't even Farsi. It was nothing but the moaning of a zombie.
Lisa looked at him, just confused enough for Speedy to grab the gun. "No!" she yelled and fired three rounds through his chest.
Speedy pulled the gun towards him and bit her hand.
Almost over...
