Day 359 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 10 - (1,555 words)

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UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 10

Margaret was limping along the pavement, moving at a pace slower than any sane person would travel when surrounded by the undead, since the Great Zombie Apocalypse, running was a survival skill. Margaret limped along unbothered by their presence and unmolested as she moved among them.

There were snarls and snaps of jaws, aimless waving of hands and grasping fingers in the air, but nothing anywhere near Margaret herself.  The evening had settled in to stay, the light had faded to nothingness but the high moon lit everything well enough that the evening dusk and the brilliant lunar scape made a hospital waiting room lighting effect, unhealthy but more than visible.

Her dogged footsteps on the concrete were a constant pace, she was escaping very slowly but deliberately and she wanted as much distance between herself and the eventual pursuers as she could get. Ben had made his requirements known, she was to escape as soon as she could do so safely, and that opportunity came along much quicker than even she expected. Her captors, she did not know their names, the ones that the smarmy woman had exchanged herself with, gave he a look she recognized instantly.

“Can we get you anything?” One of the asked, his voice went up in a high rise terminal, and increasing his volume as if she were deaf, foreign or simple. It was entirely possible that she was getting all three of those assumptions at once.  She had nodded and croaked her request for a cup of tea and then he was gone, she could hear him fluffing about in the kitchen and chatting away to her, not expecting an answer, burbling on about his life and his kids. How special they are, the genetic soup they were seeded from was superior stock he was saying.

She did not find out the end point of his eugenics lecture, as she had opened the second storey window and went out of it quickly. She had been captive for less than five minutes; she was pretty sure that if she ran across the city a few blocks she might have even caught up with Ben.

If she knew which direction they had driven off into.

There was a fire escape that almost, but not quite, reached the ground in the alleyway outside. She had been bustled onto the stairs and left Ben and the Angela woman at the entrance to the building and she was escorted up the stairs, where she took her sweet time to climb them, feigning an age that was far from accurate, and then sat in a comfy chair and offered a tea. That was all she needed and that was it, she was out the window and climbing down the steel rails and rungs.

Just before she put her leg over the window she saw a handheld device, one that had buttons and lights like the magic stick things they got from the City where she and Ben had ‘integrated partially’, but looking more like a stopwatch. She picked it up and dropped it in a pocket as she made good her escape.

The not quite part was where she got her injury, a small jump would be required to make it to the ground and as she landed, her ankle twisted and while she could put her weight on it, she would not be able to move at a fast pace with the bruised or pulled muscles. She limped to the end of the alleyway and turned right, heading up the street and past a park and some downtown office buildings and making it to the subway entrance.

She knew that inside would be a hot bed of undead activity. They made their way down into tunnels and would get stuck, any broken stairs or steps would flummox them, and the steepness of an escalator defeated their shuffling gait each and every time they tried to climb up again. It would also be the perfect place to hide out. She had the attraction device, and if she placed it near the foot of the escalator then she could concentrate the undead in one area, then make her way around them safely.

Sure enough there were clumps of zombies stumbling repeatedly over their torn limbs and appendages, constantly being slammed into the steps too high to take and too sharp when they jutted out to not injure the undead bodies.

A stones throw from the front line of the zombies she cleared her throat and got their attention, surging forwards but only managing to injured the front runners more, crushing them under the wave of undead now following the sounds.

“Perfect.” She said to herself, then louder ‘Perfect!” and there was the tinniest of echoes in the escalator tunnel. She turned on the device and made ready to throw it a few feet over the undead heads, trying to concentrate them away from her position and pacify them at the same time.

“Oh.” She said out loud and held onto the device.

They were not moving towards her, they were moving away from her and doing so in a perfect semi circle. Like a round force field had suddenly been thrown around her, none of the zombies would stand any close than nine or ten feet away from wherever she moved her hand.

This was a different device, and it repelled and did not pacify the zombies. Curious that this device was never given to them in the City for their travels, instead of the one that attracted the undead and calmed them down. Both were ultimately very handy in undead management, but why did they not have both. The repellent would have been very handy in a pinch?

She tested her observation, moving her feet to the very foot of the escalator stairs and watched the undead move away at an equidistant rate relative to her position.  It was the device, it had to be that one thing that was new and that was ‘activated’ when she saw the new symptom.

Margaret limped through the crowd, and it formed a perfect circle about her as she walked nervously up down the platform.  This was an astounding discovery, and she was tempted to go back to her captors and steal a gun, get more of these wonderful little devices and take them to Ben.

Her one task was to escape and get to safety, so that was her plan and she was sticking to it. The subway tunnels had to come out somewhere and while they were quite dark, the repelling force of the new device would keep her well protected when she was exploring.

She stood on the edge of the platform and in the light from the skylights above the tracks she could see an endless sea of the undead milling about on the tracks. They were pushing and clawing at each other and themselves to get out of the field of the stopwatch device, but not succeeding and only driving each more and more wild with frustration.  There was the potential of overload or frenzy maybe if she dropped in there with them and she knew nothing about the device she had stolen. She took a few steps back and allowed the zombies to ease up the tension on themselves.

“Why do I have any pity for you monsters?” she barked at them, but she knew that deep down the feeling that she would have needed to drive them crazy and suicidal was not in her. If it had been a matter of life and death then she could have, if it was Ben she could have.

Family comes first, protect and provide for the family first. That was the family motto, or at least that was what her late husband had always said. Ben had decided to get out of the family business, before the GZA and before her husband, Ben’s father had died and … well his fate was like that of so many before hand.

She had promised him that she would do what was necessary, and she did that. She would always do that, but here and now she had options, less selfish ones that the massacre and potential overload of the undead in the tunnels.

The alternate exit, the one across the platform, on a different city block from the entrance she had come down, that one would have to do.

She took her time, resting her ankle while she could, but as she got to the stairs she heard voices and then saw torches. They were following her into the subway, and the zombies on the platform parted like the red sea as they made their way in with the same device she was using.

Obviously she did not have the only one.

Margaret exited the station in the dark and made her way up the opposing street as quickly as her limp would let her go. She turned corners and cut through buildings until she felt more secure in the path she was leaving behind her, hopefully indecipherable and untraceable.

She walked up the block and the undead melted out of her way, her limp was getting better and less noticeable but she was still far from fast walking and hobbling at a casual pace.