Apocalypse of the Dead. Joe Mckinney

jail pod all day, you watch a lot of TV. He had heard that moan before, on the news. Once, he’d seen a news spot where hundreds of the things had been moving down a San Antonio street. The things had been packed in tightly. And even with the volume turned down and the other guys talking and laughing and making asses of themselves all around him, he could still feel the gooseflesh popping up on his arms. But seeing it on TV was nothing like hearing it in person. The real thing took his breath away.

      “Shoot it,” he said to Carnot.

      But Carnot just stood there, the phone still stuck to the side of his face.

      “Hang up the fucking phone and shoot,” Billy said.

      Carnot groaned. Then he seemed to find himself. He looked at the phone like he was surprised it was still there. Then he said, “Babe, I gotta go.”

      He flipped the phone closed and slid it into his gun belt.

      Then he pulled his gun.

      “Sir, you need to stop.”

      “He’s not gonna stop,” Billy said.

      “Shut up,” Carnot snapped.

      He raised his gun and pointed it at the zombie’s chest.

      “Stop, police!” Carnot shouted.

      The man lumbered forward.

      “Jesus, Carnot, he’s not gonna stop. Fucking shoot him already.”

      “Stop,” Carnot said. But his voice was barely a whisper. He lowered his gun, raised it again.

      “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Billy said. He stepped around Carnot with his trash spike raised like a javelin and jammed it into the zombie’s temple.

      The zombie didn’t go down. It stayed on its feet and even turned a little toward Billy, its hands coming up to clutch at him. Grunting with the effort, Billy held on to the spike and worked it around inside the wound until the zombie’s arms dropped down to its sides and it sagged to the ground. Billy guided it down onto its back and then yanked his spike free.

      “Holy shit,” Carnot said. “What the hell did you do?”

      Your job, you idiot.

      But he didn’t say that. His gaze went right past Carnot to the parking lot. Three more zombies were limping toward them. They looked different than the one Billy had just put down. They were shabbier. Their clothes were gray, filthy rags. Their faces were gaunt, smeared with blood. They looked like the zombies he had seen on the news, the ones inside the quarantine zone.

      He heard moaning to his right and looked that way.

      “What the hell?” he said.

      There were two zombies there, a man and a young boy, their wrists tied together.

      “Hey, boss,” he said. “We’re gonna need that pistol.”

      “Yeah,” Carnot said.

      But the deputy was shaking so badly he could barely point his gun at the approaching zombies, all of whom had started to moan loudly. The sound carried with disturbing clarity across the park. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

      “We have to get to high ground,” Billy said.

      Carnot nodded, but didn’t move.

      “Come on,” Billy said.

      He grabbed the deputy by the shoulder and pulled him toward the bus. There was enough of a gap between the zombies that Billy thought they’d be able to make it at a brisk walk, but they hadn’t gone more than a few steps when one of the prisoners tumbled out of the bus doors and landed on his back in the parking lot. It looked like his throat had been torn out. One of the guards climbed down after him, his face and the front of his uniform soaked through with a reddish-brown stain.

      “Get on your radio,” Billy said to Carnot. “Call for help.”

      Carnot reached down to his belt and felt for where the radio should have been, but wasn’t. He looked back at the watercooler. Billy followed his gaze and saw the radio in the grass next to the lawn chair.

      “For Christ’s sake,” Billy said.

      One of the other prisoners was coming across the grass toward them. Most of his face was gone. Billy stared at the man. He’d heard the infected could ignore pain that would put an uninfected person over into unconsciousness. There were recorded instances of the infected walking around with their intestines hanging out of their bellies. But Billy hadn’t really believed those things until now. That man, his face had literally been chewed off. And he was still coming.

      Billy looked around for a place to take cover. The news had said to seek the high ground, if possible. There was a gap between the approaching zombies and through it he saw a car parked off by itself.

      “There,” he said to Carnot. “That car over there. Come on.”

      They ran for it, Billy pulling Carnot along behind him. The car was a fairly new Buick in decent shape. It was empty, and Billy was glad for that. He jumped onto the roof, turned, and pulled Carnot up next to him. Then they got on the roof and stood side by side, watching the zombies getting closer.

      “You’re gonna have to shoot,” Billy said.

      Carnot raised his weapon. Billy watched him take aim at a man in running shorts and the remnants of a bloodstained white T-shirt.

      “Shoot him,” Billy said.

      Carnot fired. The bullet smacked into the man’s shoulder and spun him around, but it didn’t drop him. He turned back toward them and came on again.

      “Head shots, damn it,” Billy said.

      “I’m trying,” Carnot said. His voice was trembling.

      He fired three more times and managed only one hit.

      Within moments they were surrounded. Mangled hands clutched at their feet. The moaning was deafening. Carnot was shaking badly now. He was firing wildly, completely missing zombies that were less than three feet from the tip of his gun. Billy, meanwhile, was kicking at hands and spearing at faces, making his movements count.

      He got one of the zombies in the forehead, and the man slumped forward onto his knees, his face pressed against the back driver’s-side window by the bodies pushing in from behind him. One of the zombies in the back managed to ramp up over the fallen zombie’s back and came up onto the roof.

      Billy sidestepped around the zombie’s outstretched arms and pushed him down onto the trunk.

      He heard a click.

      Carnot was standing there, pointing his empty Glock at the zombies below him. The slide was locked back in the empty position.

      “Goddamn it. Reload!”

      Carnot pointed the empty pistol at another zombie and tried to pull the trigger.

      “Reload your fucking—”

      But Billy didn’t get a chance to finish. Carnot vanished. It was like Wile E. Coyote in those old Road Runner cartoons. One second he was there; the next he was gone, his feet pulled out from underneath him. The back of Carnot’s head smacked against the edge of the roof with a sickening crunch and then they pulled him down to the ground.

      As Billy watched, they swarmed Carnot, tearing at him with their teeth and their fingers.

      His screams lasted only a moment.

      Billy didn’t waste time watching Carnot twitching in his death throes. Instead, he jumped to the ground and ran for it. A few of the zombies tried to follow, but they were slow. Billy was able to weave through them easily. Once he created some distance, he stopped, caught his breath, and looked for an escape route.

      There were, he guessed, maybe sixty or seventy of the zombies walking across the park. Most were close by, already in the parking lot. A few were crossing the street into the hotels