FUBAR, A CDDA Story

His ears hurt. They rang with an annoying, high-pitched whine that faded far slower than he had hoped it would. His left arm hurt too, the telltale wetness of bleeding soaking through into the thick military jacket. He winced as he tried to raise it to undo the harness, letting it fall back to his side before using his right hand instead.

The helicopter’s interior was mostly intact, although the cockpit had been smashed inwards. He could see the pilot’s hand dangling limply, that and a lot of blood. The other passengers were nowhere to be seen.

With his free hand he tore up nearby webbing, making a rudimentary sling that held his arm close to his chest. It wasn’t broken, as far as he could tell, but it hurt to move it at all. His hearing had started to return, and with a start he realized that he could hear the distinctive crackle of a fire. He rushed to the door, hurling it open and sprinting awkwardly for a few seconds before stopping and turning to look at the wreck.

“Fuck.” PFC Kyle Blank said, staring at the wreckage strewn around the smoking hull of the helicopter. The Beverly Airport was still a mile away, but at least the bunker they’d been heading to was closer. Small blessings, at least.

If that was a blessing, than the crash’s proximity to West Hartford was a curse. The helicopter had finally come to a rest more or less in someone’s backyard, and he could see several zombies already shuffling closer. The squad’s sergeant had briefed them on the zombies, although he hadn’t had any pictures to share. In the flesh, the creatures were grotesque, pale skin stained with blood around the mouth and hands. At least they were slow: as they shambled closer Kyle set off at a brisk pace, ducking between houses to try and keep them from following. He didn’t fancy his chances with only one working arm, and a few of the dead managed to look somehow eager for a fight, in a way that Kyle found greatly off-putting. Before long he was jogging quickly but awkwardly through the surrounding fields, careful to give the odd zombie a wide berth.

Through his binoculars, the bunker was clear. Pristine, even, alarmingly so. There wasn’t even a guard stationed in the guardhouses. No zombies either, which probably made the whole thing a wash. When he tried the front gate he found it locked, and spent a long few minutes clambering over with his one good hand. Both guardhouses were indeed empty; not even a scrap of paper in the desk drawers.

Eventually he made his way to the sealed door, a tiny card reader dwarfed by the massive steel barrier. He swiped his ID card.

Bzzzzzt. “Invalid card. Please consult your commanding officer.” Said the card reader in a pleasant, calm female voice.

“Fuck.” Said Kyle, in a decidedly not pleasant or calm voice. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

He swiped again, and received the same reply. He was tempted to smack the machine, but it wouldn’t do any good; he’d have to make his way back to the helicopter and see if he could find another ID card, but the zombies were still back there.

“Fuck it. The airport then.”

He clambered back over the chainlink fence, and began to trudge further north.

---

The airport was empty, which came as a mild surprise. Kyle had expected people to be waiting here to leave, or at least to hide, but the only sounds he could hear was the sputtering of a car that someone had left running, its backfiring exhaust a sporadic but welcome break in the silence.

He had to force the sliding doors open, something a misspent youth proved helpful in. Inside the airport was still, large glass windows helping to let sunlight in without the power working. There were several discarded backpacks scattered throughout the small waiting area, and a pair of vending machines that, somehow, still had lits quietly blinking away in the corner.

“Hello?” Kyle shouted, waiting for a response. “Anyone?”

No reply came, not even the groan or shuffling step of the dead. He shrugged mentally, and grabbed one of the sling packs to rest across his front. The Army, in their infinite wisdom, had only advised him to bring his weapons, as all food and clothing would be stored securely in the shelter. Apparently. He slung a backpack over his back too, careful to keep the weight off of his left arm.

Besides discarded baggage, the small building was empty. Kyle stared longingly at the vending machines, but payday was due in a week’s time; his cash card was empty. He debated smashing the glass, but a warning sticker of a cartoon eyebot told him the machines were guarded, and he knew those things ran on solar power.

Resigned, he headed out onto the airstrip to see what he could find. The strip and hangars both were empty of aircraft, probably why no one was waiting for a plane. He couldn’t see anyone through the tower’s windows, either, although the orange windsock gave an occasional reassuring snap to break the silence. One hangar still held a pair of electric forges, small enough to carry if he needed to, and an acetylene torch. He tucked the torch into his backpack, but found the forges too awkward to move without his left arm. He trudged back to the airport’s parking lot, systematically checking the cars. The backfiring junk pile had three flats, as did a sleek electric sports car that someone had abandoned. The third and final vehicle in the lot was a high-class electric SUV, low on battery and with solar panels ripped off the roof, but functional. He tried not to think what caused the damage as he got to work, using his knife to access the vehicle’s internals and getting it started. When it eventually hummed to life, he pulled the vehicle around to the front of the airport, mindful of the fast-decreasing battery level and a warning light that, presumably, indicated damaged internals.

Kyle ducked back into the main building and hauled a chair over to the vending machines. With one swing of his arm he sent it crashing through the glass. Immediately the lights changed to a flashing red, and an alarm blared. He winced at the noise while cramming the machine’s contents into his backpack before running back to the SUV, giving the approaching eyebot a nervous glance as he started to accelerate away, heading towards the town of Beverly.

Halfway there, he noticed a figure running towards the vehicle on all fours. It was another zombie, its hands badly bloodied from contact with the pavement, and it moved at a surprising speed for its awkward gait. As Kyle neared it he began to swerve around the zombie, but the creature almost immediately leapt sideways to block the way. The zombie hit the bumper at speed with a sickening thud, getting thrown up and into the windshield with the impact. The glass spiderwebbed alarmingly, but it held. The engine didn’t though and the car slowed to a gradual halt, badly damaged zombie feebly trying to punch through the glass.

“Fuck!” Kyle shouted, for what felt like the hundredth time time. “Fucking car. Fucking zombies. Fucking fuck.” He sighed heavily, locking eyes with the creature before carefully opening the SUV’s door. “At least the airbags didn’t go off.” he muttered as he stood up. The zombie tried to follow him, but its bones must have been damaged too badly from the impact. It couldn’t do much more than emit a low groan, alarmingly like a living person in pain.

He tried to ignore it as he looked at Beverly through his binoculars. Calling it a ‘town’ was generous, but around here calling anything a town was generous. Four buildings sat clustered close together, two houses, a bar, and a gun shop. It couldn’t have been a more stereotypical combo, although he couldn’t really laugh; he’d worked at the gun shop briefly before joining up. “Red’s Guns, For Dead Fun”, a motto that no one but the owner found terribly funny.

Beverly wasn’t empty like the airport. A few scattered zombies milled around, occasionally sniffing at the air or twitching at a sudden sound. As he watched, the majority of them began to shamble after a small group of newly-wild dogs headed west. He grimaced as one dog, not realizing the danger ran up to a zombie and was immediately set upon by the whole group.

With most of the zombies distracted, Kyle crept to the back of one of the houses. The backyard had a pair of sliding glass doors, the kind that no one ever really locks, and this house’s owners were no different. The house was largely empty, most of the drawers and cupboards left open in the occupants’ rush to leave. He quietly drew the blinds in every room, taking stock of the house as he went. In the chilly darkness of the building, he sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

“A pile of junk-food.” He muttered, counting it off on his good hand as he talked to himself. “A bunch of frozen soda. A cold, empty house. A rifle with one magazine and…” He reached over, testing the light switch on the wall. “No power.”

“And a fucked up arm.” He added, after a sudden stabbing pain from his forearm made him wince.

Standing up, he transferred the scavenged food to the refrigerator, more a force of habit than anything else. The acetylene torch he shoved into a cupboard next to a beaten-up pot, before throwing the empty backpack after it. He grabbed a pair of sodas, tucked them into his jacket, and pocketed a handful of snacks.

With one arm, he slowly dragged an armchair into a hall closet. He pulled the bedding from the house’s one bedroom and shut the door, settling awkwardly into the narrow space. In the darkness, he waited for night to fall, the sodas to thaw, or to fall asleep. Whichever came first.

---

Kyle woke up slowly. He didn’t feel like he’d been asleep for long, although the stiffness from his legs made him doubt that. Carefully he moved his left arm, finding it mobile but still somewhat painful to move. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, too. He gritted his teeth against the soreness and pain as he opened the door, unfurling himself from the closet as quietly as he could manage. Night had fallen, and he could barely see with the curtains drawn. The soda had defrosted overnight, but it was still cold enough to hurt his teeth as he drank. At least it helped to wash down the jerky, cold and hard from the early spring temperatures.

Stomach full and thirst sated, Kyle unslung the M4A1. The weight was reassuring, although the loaded magazine was all the ammo he had. He carefully seated the Army-issue knife into place under the barrel, carefully testing it to ensure it was seated properly. They hadn’t trained him for it, not much at least, but it wasn’t a hard concept to figure out. Point, stab, repeat. He had to save ammo somehow.

It was raining outside, a freezing cold drizzle just shy of snow. His helmet and boots were waterproof, but the rest of his clothes weren’t. He could feel the rain start to make them heavier as he ventured out, hunched over his rifle to try and prevent keep the water off.

He could barely see in the overcast night, so he shouldn’t have been so surprised when he almost walked straight into a zombie. He yelped when he saw it, a throttled scream that he cut off almost as soon as it started when he remembered where he was, but it was too late. The creature turned to face him and let out a low groan before beginning to shamble closer.

He backpedaled, gripped by a fear he hadn’t expected. Up close, the zombie was unnaturally pale, blood and filth staining much of its clothes. The creature was still recognizable as a middle-aged woman, dressed for a trip to the grocery store, although several bites and other wounds had shredded much of her torso. Whenever it got close enough it tried to grab at him, fingers clawing and teeth ready to bite.

Taking an opportunity between the zombie’s desperate lunges, Kyle stepped forward and thrust the bayonet, feeling it pass smoothly into the creature’s chest. He tried to wrench the rifle back, but found that the creature was unaffected by the stab. He felt the zombie’s hands clawing at his arms, holding him in place as it began to gnash its teeth. Desperately, he kicked at its legs, sending it sprawling backward with a sickening crunch. Before it could stand back up, he lunged forward and brought the bayonet down through one eye.

He stepped back from the newly-dead corpse, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his veins and the rapid pounding of his heart. He was breathing heavily, far heavier than a few seconds of action warranted, but he had trouble bringing himself under control. With a deep, shuddering breath he forced himself to calm down.

“Fucking zombies.” He said, prodding the corpse with a boot to see if it would spring back to life.

The sound of feet dragging on asphalt, just barely audible through the rain’s steady patter, brought him out of his daze.

Kyle turned to face the sound and found another zombie, this one more badly damaged than the first. One arm was missing, and it dragged one leg as if the joints wouldn’t bend. Cautiously, he aimed a thrust at the creature’s eye. It didn’t move to dodge, and the bayonet found its mark. Kyle took another deep breath, this one more calm, and scrubbed the bayonet clean in the wet grass. He really hoped this would get easier.

Eventually, once his heart stopped beating loud enough to hear down the street, he continued across to Red’s Guns. Red had been a weird guy with weird tastes, but a decent boss who kept a good store. Every window was barred, and the external doors were all reinforced metal. The sign over the front door, complete with motto and cowboy mascot, wasn’t quite jolly enough to offset the fortified appearance, but security was what Red’s clientele craved. That and no spying eyes, which was why in place of the traditional “Under Eyebot Protection” sticker, Red had hung “I sell guns, go ahead and try” right under the Open/Closed sign. Bravado alone though wouldn’t replace the advanced electronic lock package; it took Kyle a few minutes to remember the trick before the lock finally clicked open. He shut the door behind him as he entered the store, finally feeling safe enough to relax.

Red must have emptied most of the store before leaving, because it was empty of most of the merchandise and the man himself. A few random boxes of ammunition, mismatched magazines, and the odd scope were all that was left on the sales floor. The back repair room only had a pair of old repair kits and a set of handloading equipment, probably too big for Red to carry out. A few old snacks and sodas were still in the breakroom’s fridge though, and a copy of Red’s old textbook on handloading ammunition was still lying on the table.

After a few trips back and forth to the abandoned house, and another sudden zombie intrusion, Kyle lowered himself onto the breakroom’s sofa. He’d stripped off the wet winter gear, and had wrapped all the bedding he could find around himself to try and get warm. He was tired again, sooner than he expected, and almost every muscle was sore. Whether that was from sleeping in a closet or trying to fight off the living dead he couldn’t really say. He took a pair of aspirin he’d found in the house’s bathroom, washed it down with a nearly-frozen fruit juice, and set to work chewing on what was left of the jerky. Tomorrow, if he was lucky, his clothes would be dry and the world would be a little less shit.

---

Kyle woke up to the last rays of sunshine. The good news was his clothing was, mostly, dry. The bad news was it was still raining. That, and he was starting to run low on assorted junk food to snack on.

Outside, Beverly seemed empty of the undead. The odd wild animal and occasional group of feral dogs, but no zombies at least. Once night had fallen he left Red’s, straining his eyes and ears in the darkness, trying to see or hear anything through the rain. With nothing forthcoming, he cautiously crept across the street to the bar. He’d been too young to drink there before joining up; still too young, really, but a little alcohol wouldn’t go amiss in the apocalypse, legal or otherwise.

The door had been left unlocked, and the interior was empty. Behind the counter the liquor rack was largely empty, and an experimental pull on the taps revealed that whatever they’d been serving was no longer available. He pocketed a bottle of whiskey and another of vodka, before proceeding to the tiny kitchen. Pots and pans aplenty, but no food to be seen.

Only one house remained in the small town, and it would have to be his last hope. The only other nearby town was West Hartford, and he was loathe to return. The brief look he’d had while fleeing the downed helicopter indicated plenty of zombies, and more than a few that looked even more inhuman than the rest.

Creeping through a pair of abandoned cars, he found the front door unlocked. A good start at least, but inside it was clear the occupants had left in a hurry. Articles of clothing were scattered at random throughout the building, and the kitchen was nearly empty of anything edible. He managed to find a gallon of milk, frozen solid, and a few cans only somewhat dented. They’d have to do.

The only place left that wasn’t a mile or more away was the radio station, little more than a shack and an old antenna that a local country station still used. It barely broadcasted outside the neighboring towns, but everyone seemed to like it regardless. If he was lucky, the place would have a breakroom with someone’s abandoned lunch to snack on.

The station’s chainlink fence was easy enough to climb now that both arms were working, and he made his way towards the station’s only building. The door was locked, although by his eye it was outdated. He fished in his pocket for the scrap of metal he’d used to break into Red’s, and set to work.

A minute had passed in quiet work before he was startled by the blaring of an alarm. He jerked back from the door, his stomach dropping: they had an eyebot.

It was on him before he could stand up. The camera snapped loudly barely two feet from him, a bright flash blinding him as he swung wildly in response, feeling the bayonet rip into the machine’s thin casing. It fell to the ground in a heap, but he’d heard the shutter, and now something entirely worse was on the way.

As quietly as possible, Kyle flicked the selector to automatic. The overcast night meant he could barely see ten feet away, but the light drizzle did little to mask the noise of the approaching robot. The rumble of wheels and the occasional order to cease and desist meant he’d gotten somewhat lucky, at least, because whatever automated system was still functioning had only sent a police bot. Still heavily armored, but far less of a threat than the riot control bots. He’d seen them go to work clearing a protest turned violent once, and they’d been brutally efficient at their task.

Quietly, he crept to the side of the building and waited for the machine to make its way to the door. When it finally stopped he leaned out from behind the wall and carefully took aim. The robot was squat, only five feet tall, but wide and heavy. Its head was an array of various sensors sealed in a bulletproof glass dome, and a pair of arms hung ready at either side. Underneath, a set of three omni-directional wheels gave the robot the maneuverability it needed to handle its job, although they still weren’t terribly fast. As he was about to fire, he noticed the brilliant blue of the local police force was already chipped and scratched. Zombies, probably, if the long drag marks and numerous, minor dents were any indication.

That hesitation was enough time for the robot to spin suddenly, both arms held out and ready as it began to accelerate towards him.

“Cease and desist, citizen.” It blared, the recording of some unknown man made tinny by the speakers. “Cease and desist.”

Before the bot could close any further, he fired. Each brief flash seemed to freeze the rain in the air, as the dry crack of gunfire melded with the crunch and tear of bullets colliding with the robot’s frame.

Ten rounds later, the robot was motionless, arms loosely hanging at its sides. A bullet had caught the sensor array, and another had nearly blown off the front wheel, leaving the wreck balancing at a slight angle. A faint ringing lingered briefly in Kyle’s ears, but as he waited it faded away to the sound of the rain.

As he began to make his way back to Red’s Kyle heard a faint sound from the west, beyond the radio tower, a screech that sounded like a tortured cross between an eagle and a human being. As he listened, he realized that it periodically repeated, and each time it did it got a little louder.

He flinched when he heard another screech, as if in response, this time from the north. Kyle broke into a steady jog, but now he swore he could hear the faint rustle of feet.

He spun as the faint rustle turned into the pounding, disordered thump of a creature running on all fours. Out of the darkness, a once-human figure leapt towards him, its nails and teeth both distended and sharp. He dodged the lunge, but the zombie landed more nimbly than he’d expected and it tore a gash in his jacket as he turned to face it once again. He felt a stinging sensation from his side, but he didn’t have time to look.

Without thinking, Kyle let off another long burst of gunfire, the zombie distorting grotesquely as the bullets impacted before it finally collapsed.

“Damn it!” He screamed, swearing, at himself, at the stupid panic. He didn’t stop to check the corpse for anything useful before beginning to spring back towards Red’s, the gentle rain whipping against his face as he pelted through the darkness.

He made it back to the store without further incident, thankful for the security of its barred windows and thick doors. Shuttered in the breakroom, he checked his injury in the flickering flame of a lighter. It was a light scratch, barely enough to break the skin, and a hastily wrapped strip of cloth from one of the breakroom’s couches covered it nicely. The jacket was unfortunate, but the tear was small and, if he could find some thread, probably an easy fix.

Outside, he could still faintly hear the sounds of shuffling feet, the occasional moan, and the sporadic searching cries of whatever made that horrible screech.

Kyle snuffed the lighter and opened a can of beer Red had kept in the fridge for after-work when he did repairs on his personal armory. That and a bottle of fruit juice were all he had left, but they’d have to do for the night. He had a feeling he wasn’t getting out anytime soon.

---

He woke up bright and early the next morning. Sometime in the night the zombies had lost interest, and besides the occasional unnerving smudge on the store’s glass windows there was no sign of them.

The unhappy rumble of Kyle’s stomach reminded him of the task at hand. He downed the last of the fruit juice, trying to wash out the feeling of fuzz that he always felt whenever he didn’t brush his teeth, and shouldered his rifle. West Hartford was the town he’d run through after the crash, and from what he’d seen it was crawling with the undead, but it also had the dubious honor of being the only place within a day’s walk that had a grocery store. He didn’t really have a choice.

Outside the air was brisk and cold, and it had finally stopped raining.  A beautiful spring day, really, despite everything. He took a deep breath, feeling the cold air entering his lungs, and set off to the southwest.

There wasn’t really a path between the two towns, although the area was mostly old farmland anyway. He spotted the occasional rabbit or squirrel darting between the shrubs and longer patches of grass, and packs of wild dogs eyed him warily as he passed, but they never very close. Hardly a bad thing; the way they looked at him was a little too hungry for comfort.

Almost halfway between the two towns, he noticed a spout of lava quietly bubbling away, having long since burned a quarantine for itself in the field. Despite his curiosity, he gave the place a wide berth. For all he knew the ground was unstable, and he’d find himself standing in it before he knew what was going on. Add ‘geotechnical catastrophe’ to the list of apocalypses, apparently.

Whatever was wrong with the ground there, it didn’t extend to the town. Through the binoculars it seemed quiet, although the odd shuffling zombie meant it couldn’t rightly be called ‘safe’. At least on the outskirts, where the nearest grocery store was, it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge.

The first stop, though, was going to be an abandoned light tank, still appearing functional but with the hatches hanging ominously ajar. He wasn’t sure if it had been sent to defend the bunker or control the town, but whatever it’s mission had been the hulk stood abandoned. As he closed in, he could smell fuel; something had punctured the vehicle’s tanks, although he had no idea how they’d managed it through the tank’s armor.

The interior was blood-stained but free of any inhabitants, living or dead. He pocketed a spare box of 9mm ammo, and took a hard look at the tank’s mounted M2 Browning before moving on. A pistol would be an easy find, at least in theory; an unmounted heavy machine gun not so much.

Kyle put the tank to his back and continued on towards West Hartford. He moved slowly and deliberately, each errant twitch from a distant zombie freezing him in place, hands white-knuckle gripping his rifle.

By the time he’d inched his way to the grocery store, careful to avoid conflict with the town’s undead denizens, the sun was near to setting. Kyle wrenched the powerless sliding doors open and began walking the aisles, dragging the least-damaged shopping cart he could find.

It was obvious he wasn’t the first person to have the brilliant idea of raiding the place. Most of the shelves were empty, particularly the canned foods section. He loaded up what he could find, thankful for the unseasonal cold. Without it, half of the things in his cart would have gone sour days ago.

He was just turning to leave when the sound of smashing glass set him on edge. It was dark now, but still just barely light enough for him to see down the aisle to the front. One of the large, floor-to-ceiling windows was indeed smashed, the wind and rain already making a mess of the interior. No zombie, though.

Kyle stood stock still, straining his eyes and ears to try and sense anything in the darkness. He heard a faint, quiet patter, like bare feet on the tiled floor, before without warning a figure coalesced an arm’s length away from him in the darkness, a zombie that seemed to ooze shadow. It reached towards him in disturbing silence, the outline of its arms made fuzzy by the permanent shadow as they approached. With a stifled grunt he thrust the bayonet into the shadowy figure’s center, feeling the blade catch and dig into something. He tore it out to the side, the exertion sending the creature crashing sideways and once again out of view, disappearing from sight even as it smashed into the shelving with an echoing clatter.

As he turned back towards the front, another pair of the shadowy zombies appeared, already nearly grabbing his arm. He stumbled backwards, but as soon as he was out of reach they disappeared once again, the faint sound of their feet the only sign anything was there.

Kyle turned and began to run deeper into the store, one hand dragging the cart behind. He rounded the end and sprinted towards the front, already hearing the zombies trying to smash their way through the shelving and into his aisle.

Nearing the door, he felt a sudden sharp sting as a shadowed arm clawed at his side. He didn’t stop to look, swinging the cart wildly and sending the creature tumbling to the side. Another zombie appeared, this one nearly knocking him off his feet before he forced it back. He ran through the sliding door and down the street, not caring about the clatter the shopping cart made as he did.

Getting the cart through the field had been tough, but an hour or so of swearing and pulling saw it safely back home, no further instances of mysterious invisible zombies appearing to cause problems. While the food meant he’d be fine for another few days, his jacket had a second rip to add to the first, and he’d only just managed to stop the bleeding minutes ago with a hastily applied bandage. The rest of him was bruised and battered, but only the kind of background ache that would fade in a day or two. He hoped, at least; the last thing he needed was some infection or broken bone to trip him up.

Outside the gun store, he could hear the faint sound of zombies circling the building. They’d followed him back, probably tracking the shopping cart’s endless clatter and rattle as he pulled it along, but at least they were outside and, as far as he could tell, didn’t understand doors. That was something, at least.

---

Kyle spent the next week or so doing more or less the same thing. Wake up, lug the shopping cart across the fields, carefully search through the abandoned town for anything useable, and run whenever a zombie started to notice. It was monotonous, but at least it was helpful. An anvil in a hardware store, another welder and a solar panel in a mechanic’s shop, and an eclectic assortment of random foods, drinks, and drugs he’d found in the abandoned homes. He’d even managed to break into an abandoned fire truck and make off with a cart full of fire gear and a pair of PBA’s that he really, really hoped he’d never actually need.

Red’s had seen a few modifications, too. The odd window had been smashed out by overly curious zombies, but the bars covering every window held them off and a quick stab with a carefully sharpened pipe took care of the problem. In the back alley he’d piled up chairs and tables to make an impromptu wooden wall, giving him a place to gather rainwater in a makeshift basin he’d welded together from one of the old gun lockers. With a strange feeling Kyle realized he’d started thinking about the gunshop as home, rather than simply Red’s.

Today though, he had a different plan in mind. With any luck, something would have survived his his helicopter’s crash that could still be used. He patted the rifle slung across his back as he headed across the fields; he’d settle for a fresh magazine, at least.

Kyle kept to the edge of the woods as he skirted the town. It wasn’t really safer than the town, if he was being honest, something about the end times had emboldened even usually docile dogs, but at least the bigger animals still had a healthy respect for humans.

It wasn’t hard to find the crash site. The rain had put out whatever fires had been burning, but a ring of debris still extended from the wreck.

He left the cart some distance from the helicopter and carefully picked his way through the wreckage. The jagged, twisted metal made him nervous. He’d been lucky so far, but he’d yet to find anything resembling a first aid kit. One bad cut, a particularly nasty infection, and he’d be in serious trouble.

The helicopter’s interior was empty of anything useful. Either the crash through its contents loose or another looter had wandered by, but besides the chairs bolted to the floor it was empty. A scraping from the cockpit brought his attention forwards; the pilot, still strapped to his chair, was twitching slightly. He made his way forward and quickly stabbed the zombie, its hand once again dangling limply as it had so many days ago. Carefully, he pulled the man’s sidearm out of a holster, an older Leadworks pistol. He couldn’t find a spare magazine, but it was better than nothing. He thought to go back outside and sift through the debris for anything that was thrown loose, but when he turned to exit another zombie had somehow appeared, dressed in military fatigues and a tattered MBR vest blocked the way, a booted foot impaled on a twisted bit of wreckage.

Kyle stifled a startled yelp before closing in slowly and carefully, trying to find a gap in the zombie’s old armor. Even the skin looked thicker than the ‘normal’ zombies he’d been dealing with, somehow. Dodging a swipe of its outstretched arms, he closed in and stabbed up through the zombie’s chin. It collapsed onto the metal with a thud.

He took a deep breath before turning the body over, taking a long look at the face. No one he knew, thankfully, and the nametag on the jacket confirmed that he’d never met the woman, but it didn’t make him particularly happy. He removed the corpse’s MBR and quickly brought it to the cart, trying to ignore the slight smell of death the thing carried. He’d have to wash it sometime if he’d ever get a use out of the thing, not something he relished when the nights still dropped below freezing. His hands felt cold just thinking about it.

Free of the crash’s undead occupants he sifted through the rest of the crash site, but only found a badly damaged L523 configured as an LMG. It was empty, of course it was, and he’d never really liked the L523 series anyway, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have space for it.

He trudged back to Red’s the same way he’d come, but this time noticed something in West Hartford he’d been too distracted to see before: a military humvee, two tires clearly deflated beyond use, sat at the edge of one of the town’s cul-de-sacs. He couldn’t drive it, that much was clear, but the vehicle had an M249 mounted in the turret. A gun, he knew, that fired the same 5.56 rounds his rifle was sorely lacking lately.

He moved cautiously into the town, eying the houses on either side of the street. More than once he’d been surprised by zombies bursting out from inside a darkened home, and he didn’t feel like repeating the experience.

The humvee itself was more badly damaged than he’d expected at first glance. He had to practically wrench the door open before it finally gave enough for him to slip inside, the vehicle’s frame somehow having bent and deformed in whatever accident left it non-functional. He had no idea how its occupants had escaped, as the vehicle was empty save a pack of cigarettes.
Crawled out through the turret, perhaps?

He didn’t have the tools to remove the entire machine gun, but he did remember how to unhook the ammo belt. He wrapped it around his torso, the heavy weight and smell of copper like a warm, familiar blanket. Maybe the LMG wouldn’t be so useless, after all.

---

Kyle counted, at least in his head, many skills amongst his repertoire, but automotive repair had never been one of them. That may be why, after several days of solid work, he had what amounted to a heavily armored riding lawnmower. A two-wheeled lawnmower, at least. The engine, certainly, was from a lawnmower, although the rest was an amalgamation of bits and pieces torn from the non-functioning vehicles that still littered the area. He’d dubbed it the Road Warrior.

He eyed the vehicle nervously as he checked his backpack. When it was too dark to work outdoors he’d retreated back into Red’s, using the light from a makeshift brazier to do some tailoring. A little help from a few books he’d found in abandoned homes and the pile of firefighter’s gear meant he now sported a lightweight, cobbled together armored suit, with accompanying backpack and trenchcoat. Even the PBA mask received a few modifications before Kyle started carrying it as a precaution around his neck. Through his binoculars, he’d spotted mobile smoke clouds trailed by zombie hordes several times. He didn’t particularly want to meet them unprepared.

The last thing he did before mounting the seat was to check the toolbelt he now wore, strapped closely to his chest and supporting the various odds and ends he’d needed when building the vehicle he now sat astride. Their weight, much like that of his rifle, was a small comfort. He patted the rear storage compartment, packed with a few days worth of supplies, and kicked the vehicle into gear.

The first thing he realized was that the vehicle couldn’t go much over twenty miles an hour, give or take. The engine groaned sickeningly the only time he’d tried, and even accelerating the vehicle to its meager top speed was slow and ponderous. It was hardly a surprise, considering the Road Warrior’s humble origins, and at least it meant he could steer without much issue; he’d only ever ridden a motorcycle a few times.

The second thing he realized was that the big inter-town roads took much longer to travel between when going half the legal speed limit.

The third thing was he’d forgotten to install a proper suspension system. Live and let learn, apparently.

He’d decided to head north to Canaan, a place that used to be a town but now was, essentially, a glorified crossroads. Halfway there though, he encountered something unexpected: a light tank, treads blown off on one side, blocking part of the road. The bike was small enough to go around, but the turret sported an old M2, and the chance for another belt of ammunition was too good to pass up.

Again the vehicle was left mysteriously abandoned, although this time the story was slightly more clear. An open top hatch and the blown tread seemed to indicate it had been hit by a mine, somehow, although he hadn’t spotted any recently dug patches of dirt. Working quickly, he pulled the ammo belt and, after a moment of thought, the M2 out of the tank and back to his bike. Who knows; it might come in handy.

It took him another hour to reach Canaan, and another three to reach Swanton, to the east. The west, he’d noticed, was home to the largest horde of zombies he’d yet seen; not something he felt like dealing with.

Just outside of Swanton, he had to pull the bike up short. A crashed helicopter took up the entire road, leaving little space between it and the woods on either side. The proximity of the airport and the bunker had made him think he might find other helicopters, but this wasn’t the first crash besides his own he’d found. He’d even spied a downed Osprey once, although it had been swarming with the zombies of its occupants. What had brought them all down?

Kyle pulled the bike along behind him as he skirted the wreckage, a careful eye watching for its undead crew come to visit. None was forthcoming, so he parked the bike outside of town and proceeded into Swanton on foot.

Swanton was a bit of an oddity in the area, in that it had businesses that were still profitable. A high-end electronic store, a sporting goods store that carried damn near everything, and even a community garden to go along with the few houses in the center of town. It was the kind of place he and his friends had made fun of relentlessly back in school, although that was mostly because they’d been too poor to go.

Not that any of that mattered anymore, really.

What did matter, and was of definite immediate concern, was the odd zombie on the outskirts of town, lurking alongside several more normal examples of the walking dead. This one’s skin was pitch black, with eyes that glowed red. He couldn’t tell if the creature had once been male or female, but now it stood oddly stretched and emaciated, as if some giant hand had pulled at either end. Its mouth was locked in a permanent, almost lascivious grin, and it seemed to make the very air around it darker with its presence.

Hiding in the treeline, he had to look away from the strange zombie for a few seconds before turning back to it. Something about the creature made him feel uneasy, a fear almost like the uncanny valley effect of a too-accurate robot. Still laying down, he carefully maneuvered the L523 LMG off his back and onto the grass, firmly seating the bipod. The ACOG scope was dented slightly from some older impact, but it was still clear enough to get a bead on the deformed creature.

He breathed lightly, and then in the middle of an exhale he let rip, firing a long burst that sent a hail of bullets into the strange zombie and dropped another two to the ground. Despite the damage it didn’t go down, and instead began to walk towards him, arms flailing in an unsettling way. As he readied the second burst, he saw one of the ‘dead’ zombies begin to stand back up, the bullet hole slowly closing over with new flesh.

“Oh, fuck that.” Kyle whispered, letting rip with another, longer burst, sweeping the LMG slightly from side to side to catch the remaining zombies nearby. In the middle of the hail he saw the necromancer zombie go down, a series of bullets nearly severing the top of its head from the bottom.

He took a deep breath before getting up, liking the heavy weight of the LMG as he swung it over his shoulder once again. He could grow to like Leadworks, maybe.

---

With the immediate threat cleared, Kyle proceeded into Swanton. There was a scattering of other zombies, but for the most part they were normal. Here and there in groups of 3 or 4 were packs of the strange, shadowy zombies. In the light of day they didn’t move much, and seemed to have worse senses than their other undead brethren.

The sharpened pipe handled them without issue, although he was beginning to miss the reassuring panic button that was his M4’s full-auto. For all its firepower, the machine gun would take too long to setup if a problem worthy of it came up.

The electronics store was almost as heavily fortified as Red’s was, metal doors and bars ominously secure. He managed to finagle the rear entrance open, the security system there less up-to-date than the one that guarded the front doors. Inside the quiet store, he removed batteries from anything he could get his hands on. A soldering iron and an MP3 player, an old model pre-loaded with random music, went into his pockets. When he eventually made his way to the front, he was surprised to find a pair of compact bionic modules resting in the window display, a power storage module and an ethanol burner.

He’d met a few people with installed bionics, mostly the rich or the more elite soldiers, but they’d always been something outside his reach. Too expensive to purchase, let alone pay a doctor to install. Even the fancy AutoDoc’s at some of the more high-end hospitals had an exorbitant fee to use. Kyle pocketed the two small boxes, although he doubted they’d ever come in handy. Better to have and not need than need and not have, as the saying goes.

The communal garden still had a few early vegetables worth picking, and he munched on one as he tried to sort the rotten from the fresh. With that meager hall he set out to explore the nearby houses, finding them nearly empty. Whoever lived in Swanton had left and cleaned their homes out, like everyone else it seemed, leaving only the odd piece of clothing or bit of food for him to sort through. Kyle wished them all the luck, wherever they were; he certainly hadn’t seen any traces of another living human in weeks.

The last place he visited, and the one he had the most hope for, was the sporting goods store. It, too, had been nearly emptied by some prior visitor, although what they’d left behind made Kyle give a whispered “Yes!” in the darkness. The camping section still held a water purifier and a multicooker, both battery operated and both sorely needed. Cooking everything on the makeshift brazier back at Red’s had started to wear on him, and the smell of smoke had permeated the building.

The real find, though, was a crossbow, a nice modern design. A set of bolts nearby completed the set, and he picked up the lot, giving the sights a quick test. Not so different from a rifle at first glance, and much quieter besides. It would be slow, but a well-placed bolt should solve most problems at a distance a spear couldn’t.

He strapped most things down onto the back of the Road Warrior, a platform he’d hastily welded on to try and account for anything he’d pick up. It made the already heavy bike heavier, but he couldn’t imagine it going any slower. He started the bike and slowly began to weave his way north, dodging wrecked cars and shambling zombies alike in the small town.

There wasn’t much of anything on the road; an old farmhouse was empty, early crops rotting in the fields, but the barn had a functional tractor. Not much use, but a find nonetheless. He made a mental note of the place and decided to head back south, the sun starting to dip towards the horizon. A few hours of light left at most, and he hadn’t been able to work out the wiring for a headlight yet. He didn’t relish the thought of spending a night by the side of the road in the dark.

Kyle was just slowing down to go around the crashed helicopter once again when things took a turn for the worse. Through the wreckage, he spotted a freakishly distorted zombie, distended muscles showing through ripped and torn skin. It must have heard the engine as he approached, because it was trying to tear its way right through the center of the helicopter. It was making good progress, although the jagged metal of each fresh tear in the hull opened up fresh wounds on its body.

Kyle braked hard, removing the crossbow as quickly as he could from storage and resting it against the handlebars. He leaned across the bike uncomfortably, trying not to let the screech of broken metal disturb him as he lined up a shot.

The crossbow twanged and the bolt zipped along the road, a brief blur that buried itself off-center in the big zombie’s forehead. It didn’t react, now almost through the last of the hull. The scattered wreckage might slow it down, but he didn’t have a lot of time.

Kyle fumbled awkwardly with the crossbow, reloading it taking far longer than he’d expected it to.

“Shit shit shit shit shit.” He whispered to himself, the litany oddly comforting as the brute broke through the hull and began to charge across more open ground.

With a click the string locked into place, and immediately he stood up, circling around the bike and backing away as he took aim. He couldn’t afford to let the creature tear the Road Warrior apart like it had the helicopter.

When its arms were almost grasping at the end of the crossbow he fired again, and this time the bolt sank deep into one of the brute’s eyes. He had to jump backwards to dodge as its momentum carried it forward, collapsing to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

With effort, he flipped the body over, but both bolts had broken in the fall. He didn’t particularly relish the thought of having to clean them, anyway; the average zombie was worse enough, but this one was already starting to ooze in a way that made him struggle not to vomit.

Kyle reloaded the crossbow again and restarted the bike, heading back towards home. The crossbow meant he had a quiet weapon, strong enough, in theory, to finally clear out the center of West Hartford.

---

One of the gun shops he’d raided had a rifle scope, and it only took a little work to attach it to the crossbow. Now, Kyle crouched outside West Hartford, staring through the scope. The town was a little more empty than he remembered, but that didn’t surprise him. The zombies tended to wander, and he’d encountered seen more than a few ambling off into the surrounding countryside without an apparent purpose. He wasn’t going to complain.

As he began to near the town, Kyle used the crossbow to kill any zombies that noticed him. He didn’t rush. Slow, methodical, and most importantly, quiet. A gentle twang of the crossbow and another zombie collapsed. With any luck, he’d finally clear the place.

His plan only started to encounter problems when he neared the center of town, where a large electronics store still stood mostly shuttered. Outside it, a strange zombie with pale blue skin twitched erratically, not moving outside a small circle. Occasionally, a spark of electricity would ark from it to the ground or a nearby car, apparently without the creature taking notice.

He frowned at the zombie, but he didn’t have many choices. He’d chosen to set out early in the morning, and even now the sun wasn’t halfway through the sky. He’d either have to detour around the shocker zombie, or wait until nightfall and its electric skin meant it couldn’t see very well in the dark.

After so long spent running and hiding, Kyle was tired of avoiding the fight. He took his time to line up a shot, and let a bolt fly. It flashed through the air, briefly attracting a bolt of errant electricity before lodging itself in the zombie’s skull.

Immediately, the creature turned towards him. Kyle swore, beginning to reload the crossbow as the zombie began to shamble towards him. It wasn’t much faster than its more normal brethren, thank goodness, and he had just finished reloading when he nearly passed out.

The zombie had raised its arms, and a giant bolt of electricity had shot towards him. He nearly dropped the crossbow in pain, eyes screwing shut as his muscles tensed with the electric current, before as abruptly as it began, it ended.

Relief from the pain struck him almost as strongly as the electricity had, but there wasn’t time to rest. Kyle hurriedly took aim, trying to calm muscles still twitching with aftershocks as the shocker closed in. As it began to raise its arms again, he fired the bolt.

This time it nearly passed through the creature’s head, and the zombie collapsed. Kyle breathed a sigh of relief, staring at the mutated corpse now lying still on the ground. Whatever had generated the electricity had died with the creature, as its skin had lost much of the strange, pale blue hue it held, now returning to a nearly translucent grey. Cautiously, he reloaded the crossbow and resolved to bring a gun next time he saw one of the shocker zombies, stealth be damned.

The rest of the town was, thankfully, free of further oddities beyond the usual amalgamation of the undead. Some once-human forms dripping steaming acid, others so bloated and distended they exploded when punctured, and even the usual cadre of too-fat walkers and oddly bulky undead. Kyle had seen them all before, and none proved to be more of a threat than the shocker zombie.

The high point of his mission to clear the town came when he spotted a pair of zombies still dressed in military fatigues. They hadn’t been part of his unit, as far as he could tell, although the time since the apocalypse meant it was getting harder and harder to see what once made the walking corpses human. Let alone their appearance, the smell of the creatures was getting to be a problem.

He dealt with them the same way he did every other zombie, although tattered helmets proved to be somewhat troublesome for the crossbow. Regardless, once both were on the ground he checked them for anything useable, and came across a pair of military IDs. They proclaimed a unit that he didn’t recognize, but the ranks were high. If he was lucky, high enough.  Kyle pocketed the pair of IDs and turned to leave the town, heading for the place he still knew the military bunker to be.

The doors hissed open with a rush of stale air. The lights were off, bar a single red safety light glowing over the stairwell.

“Hello?” Kyle called out, but the words only echoed dully on the cement and steel walls. He waited a moment before switching on a flashlight and heading in. He hadn’t met anyone yet; he was beginning to doubt he’d ever meet anyone again.

The bunker was smaller than he’d expected, apparently just a supply depot for establishing an outpost. It also wasn’t fully stocked. The underground storage areas, safe and secure behind locked doors and thick glass, were nearly empty. A spare MBR vest would come in handy, as would the pile of high-grade 5.56 he found neatly boxed up. The Mark 19 and the M320 would be a little more situational; something told him grenades might be hard to come by post-apocalypse, but at least the bunker had a full belt ready and waiting. A carefully labelled, apparently military-only Olfactory Mask CBM was also tucked away in a corner, although without a way to install it there wasn’t much he could do. He was momentarily excited by an M2010 ESR, but he didn’t have the ammunition for it, and the bunker was lacking as well.

The crown jewel of the place was a lightweight rifle he’d found leaning alone on an empty gun rack. He barely recognized the model; not many had been issued to the rank and file. Kyle knew what it was when he picked it up, though: an RM88 Battle Rifle, fully loaded with caseless ammunition. From what he’d read, and the demos that had floated around online, the gun was light, accurate, durable, and devastating. Ammunition issues aside, it was exactly the kind of firepower he’d need. He’d found an abandoned humvee nearby. If he could repair the punctured gas tank, it would be driveable, and the mounted M249 matched with the handful of belts he’d stripped from other abandoned military vehicles. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life hiding out in Red’s. It was time to move.

---

He found the roar of the humvee’s engine reassuring in the silence of the wasteland. Month after month of the loudest sounds being the screams of the odd zombie or the howl of a wolf at night, and finally something man-made was back in play. Sure, the boxy vehicle handled like a boat on wheels, and the armor he’d hastily welded on looked less and less capable the longer he had to see it, but finally, he could make some progress.

Kyle had even taken the time to refurbish the interior, after a fashion. He tore out the extra seats, attaching a salvaged kitchen unit from an RV and a water purifier he’d found in a sporting goods store. Along with the military-standard charging port, the humvee was an armored house on wheels, with top speeds that left even the fastest zombies far behind. He felt invincible, although the one time he’d tried to use it to ram a zombie had left the front fender mangled and a nasty dent in the hood. Lesson learned, he supposed.

From what little he remembered of pre-war maps, there was an evacuation shelter somewhere to the south. An evac shelter meant the chance of a real person, or at least the traces of one. He’d settle for whatever he could get at this point.

It was an hour into Kyle’s voyage, passing by the wreckage of another downed helicopter, when he heard a voice. He slowed the car to a stop and cocked his head, waiting for a repeat.

After a minute or two of silence, he heard the voice again, still somewhat indistinct, but clearly a shout of “Who’s there?”

Kyle heard his heartbeat loud in his ear. At long last he’d found someone, after what felt like months of contact with only the mangled corpses of the walking dead for company. He couldn’t even convince one of the wild dogs to remember the good old times and stop trying to bite him whenever he approached.

Kyle made sure to slam the door when he left the humvee, hoping the sound would carry.

“You there?” He shouted. “I heard you, you alright?”

He took a few cautious steps into the overgrown field by the side of the road, eyes watching for any movement, zombie or otherwise. He nearly tripped over a nearly rotted body, tattered remains of a lab coat still visible. A quick glance through the rest of the field revealed several more. Not the best sign.

“Hello?” Kyle shouted again. This didn’t feel right. If someone else was here, they should have made themselves known by now. Even an ambush would be better than the silence.

He was just preparing to shout again when a rustle from the far side of the field brought his attention. Something an unnerving shade of pale pink was approaching, fast and low through the thick grass.

“What the fuck?” He said, raising his gun hesitantly.

“Hello?” The thing said, the voice a perfect match of his own. A break in the grass revealed an amorphous creature, numerous appendages ending in ominous spikes or hands with an alarming number of fingers. Antenna on what, he assumed, were its head angled towards him, and a small pair of wings flapped uselessly on its back.

“Fuck!” He screamed gain, before taking aim and firing a long, drawn out burst from his rifle.

The creature bellowed in an inhuman voice as the bullets connected, its momentum carrying it nearly to him before it collapsed in a heap. Kyle eyed the creature warily before firing a final shot into its triangular head. It rarely hurt to be careful, he’d found.

Back in the car, he resolved himself to ignore any further interruptions, and before long he was once again disembarking the relative safety of the humvee. The evacuation shelter was clearly empty, shades drawn and lights dark, but the lack of smashed windows and doors meant that the insides should be pristine.

Pristinely empty, Kyle found, but the computer terminal was still functional. It spat out a repeat message warning of an unknown bio attack, advising all occupants use the provided gas masks. Kyle shrugged mentally. Even if he had one available, the damage was probably done.

There were a list of options, none of which were effective, until he tried the cryptic “Contact Us”, listed at the very bottom. The screen showed only a latitude and longitude, but cross-referencing it with a roadmap he’d found in the glove apartment of one of the abandoned vehicles told him it was north. Far north, apparently. Not even in the same county, if he remembered how his coordinate system worked, but it was a start. Maybe this time, he’d find someone to talk to that wasn’t pink and bloodthirsty.

---

Kyle had seen the telltale signs long before the compound’s fencing came into view. Sandbag barricades, roadblocks, the occasional busted humvee. Even the odd helicopter, crashed and broken in the fields and forests.

He was an hour north of Swanton when the road was finally, well-and-truly barricaded. An APC blocked the way, leaving him little room to squeeze his own vehicle between it and the treeline on either side of the road. It wouldn’t be impossible, per say, but it wouldn’t be safe, either. His humvee’s tires were tough, but if one popped he didn’t know where he’d get a replacement.

Which meant he’d have to walk. Kyle fumbled briefly in the passenger seat, grabbing the backpack he now habitually carried with one hand as he exited the vehicle. Backpack in place and rifle in hand, he headed around the APC into a town small enough he’d never found out if it had a name or not.

There were a few small houses, empty of most anything useful from what he could see through the windows. The odd zombie lurched around, but they were the slow, boring ones. A brisk walk was enough to handle them, and as he skirted the still-moving corpse of a young man Kyle tried not to dwell on the familiarity of it all. Weeks, months? He’d lost track of how long it had been.

A sudden explosion shattered his calm. It was followed by a brief rattle of machine gun fire, before it all ended as suddenly as it began. Kyle peeked out from behind the car he’d hidden behind, but still only saw empty homes and rotten corpses. Corpses that were now unanimously headed further north.

Kyle followed them a few minutes later, giving the shamblers a head-start. He caught up to them as they approached a tall chain link fence. Beyond it was a dozen or so yards of empty field, pockmarked by the odd crater. From some distance away, he watched as the first zombie managed to work its way over the fence, made it about halfway through the field, and disappeared with an explosive thump in a cloud of dirt. A minute later a robot wandered by and opened fire, heavy rifle tearing apart what zombies remained.

He recognized the machine, a cost-saving measure introduced only a year or two back to try and cut down on infantry in harm’s way. They were humanoid, body covered in armor colored in military camouflage. Helmets and deep black visors hid an array of sensors from infrared to natural light, and the guns they carried, machine guns nearly big enough to require a bipod if a human had been holding them, were directly hooked in to a targeting system. They were deadly. If it wasn’t for the cost, the military probably would have ordered a million of the things.

He sighed before continuing on, skirting the fencing from a distance far enough to keep out of the watchful robotic eyes of its guards. The camp was massive, and judging by the branding, built by FEMA. Not that it seemed to have any living members remaining: he eventually found the camp’s entrance, guarded by the same robotic soldiers that had been patrolling the apparent minefield, and still no sign of humans. He even took a tentative shot from as far away as he could manage, watching the bullet streak off the guard in a spark of metal on metal. It didn’t seem to affect the robot much, beyond a stray volley of bullets impacting the treeline he’d hidden in.

He turned around and made the long trek back to his humvee. Whatever was in the FEMA camp, there was no way he was brave the robotic sentinels. He’d be lucky to get past the minefield that, for some reason, FEMA apparently desperately needed.

Kyle drove slowly and thoughtfully as he continued the long journey to the coordinates. He had the fuel to make the trip, if the fuel indicator still worked right, and if he was any judge he’d get there by the end of the day. Six hours of driving at least, but it’s not like there was any better way to spend his time. He rolled down the windows and let the wind whip around. The radio didn’t work, not that he expected any stations to still be on the air, but the wind provided a music all its own. He relaxed into the seat, and he could almost imagine it was still before the cataclysm, just out for a drive on a clear spring day.

He drove through the occasional town, but there were fewer and fewer as he moved north. He didn’t bother stopping, only slowing enough to maneuver between the broken down cars and wandering zombies that he’d now come to expect from any place with more than two buildings. He had the food and supplies he needed for weeks, and another can of refried beans wasn’t worth the risk.

He knew things weren’t going to go as planned when he started to notice the fungus. Innocuous at first, patches of something almost like lichen, but spread out over the fields and forests, a sickly grey that climbed trees and rocks alike. Eventually, he started to see the occasional animal covered in the same grey fungus, fur and skin horribly twisted by fungal growths, eyes bulging, tongues hanging listlessly from gaping mouths. The animals did little more than wander about the patches of fungus, although the first time he saw a zombie enter one was a surprise. The infected animals swarmed it, battering it down with reckless abandon, before leaving it to rot on the ground. Even as he watched the fungus began to spread to incorporate the new corpse.

When he started to see spores drifting on the wind like dandelion seeds, he rolled the windows back up and stopped the car. Fishing around in the back seat, he pulled a firefighter’s helmet onto his lap. The rest of his makeshift gear should be airtight enough; the duct tape at least was pretty impermeable, but he didn’t like the thought of breathing that in, nice weather be damned.

It only got worse as he neared the coordinates, everything from either side of the road coated in fungus. Infected zombies now shambled around, somehow slightly faster than they’d been before, fungus growing to cover wounds and strengthen limbs. They’d shuffle towards him as he passed, but nothing seemed interested in chasing after him as he sped along on the fungus-covered road, tire tracks quickly being reabsorbed in the grey mass.

When he finally saw the red brick building, his heart sank. Fungus had begun to climb the exterior of what once must have been a school, nearly reaching the roof. Fungus-infected zombies and animals wandered about the perimeter, passing by shattered windows and broken-down doors. Some of the infected seemed more fresh than what he’d been used to, people dressed in the same kind of scavenged gear he now wore, weapons still strapped to their bodies. Other survivors, stricken by a fate worse than he’d imagined. The undead he could handle. Being puppeted by a plant was another thing entirely.

In the distance, maybe a mile from the building, he saw a massive tower, a spike of fungus growing above the treetops. Kyle tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he stared at it, taking in the ruined building and its former occupants as he did.

Whatever the tower was, it had to do with the fungus. The sun would set in another few hours, and there was no way he was going to park up and sleep here, not in the middle of this grey hellscape. Plus, he had a few toys he’d still never tried out.

Revving the engine, he took a wide trip around the former refugee center and gunned it towards the tower. It’s not like he had anything better to do, not anymore.

---

The good thing about the fungus and its parasitic hosts, if anything about the situation was good, was that the things were slow. Something Kyle appreciated now that half his vision was covered by the firefighter’s mask. Sound was muffled too, although it didn’t matter: he’d put earplugs in before getting the mask on. Something told him things were going to get loud.

That something was a tripod mounted grenade launcher, the Mark 19. He’d been lugging the damn thing around since he’d broken into the military bunker weeks ago, and finally he’d found something it might just help with. Several hundred yards away the spire towered over the forest, looking like nothing more than a giant, sickly-grey mushroom pockmarked with openings that visibly oozed spores and gas. A series of walls and hedges, made of thick tendrils of fungus intertwined into a solid barrier, surrounded it on all sides. They writhed and grew even as Kyle watched.

He eyed his setup nervously. He’d used the Mark 19 once, just once, as part of a training program that never went anywhere. It was destructive, sure, and putting twenty five grenades downrange usually solved any issue the Army ran into, but he was in unfamiliar territory here. More so than usual, at least. The zombies, for their part, at least looked human enough.

He crouched down behind the launcher, feet supporting the tripod’s two back feet, and felt the reassuring solidity of the launcher in both hands. He began to aim at the tower, apparently still unaware of his presence despite the humvee idling behind him.

Kyle took a deep breath, faintly hearing the hiss of the mask as he did. In and out, until his heart stopped pounding. His finger on the trigger, halfway through an exhale he pulled.

The Mark 19 made an odd sound, not the explosion he had been expecting but an exhale of air, an upscaled version of the makeshift instruments children could create from cardboard tubes. He controlled the weapons climb as best he could as the grenades began to hit, great plumes of fire and shrapnel ripping into the tower and its surrounding walls.

He’d expected it to scream, for some reason, but it writhed silently under the onslaught, swaying dangerously like a tree caught in a hurricane as if it wanted to dodge the grenades. When his magazine belt was nearly empty, the tower gave way with a snap, not quite the dry crack of a tree toppling so much as the sickly splinter of bone cushioned by flesh. He felt the impact when it hit the ground, a thump that shook the ground around him.

He had to be fast now. He jumped up and ran to the humvee, grabbing a gas can from the back seat. All around him from out of the fungal-infected in terrain creatures were imaging, infected zombies and animals joined by writhing tentacles and strange, walking mushrooms. He opened the can’s cap and began to pour, running in a wild, disorganized rush as the monsters closed in.

He threw the can when it was empty and pulled a lighter from one pocket. An old flip lighter, the kind that would stay lit long enough for the action hero to make a point. The kind, he assumed, would stay lit long enough to start a forest fire.

He chucked the tiny flame and sprinted for all he was worth to the humvee, stamping on the accelerator as flames began to spring up cheery and red in his rearview mirror. They were a welcome sight in the grey landscape, and he watched with a mixture of pride, fascination, and horror as the fire spread rapidly, chewing through the fungus like it was tinder.

The infected creatures, formerly so intent on catching their tower’s killer, turned tail and began to run. The fire licked at their heels, fast enough that Kyle accelerated further on the uneven terrain to escape it. As he bounced and rattled in the humvee, it was hard not to keep glancing back at the flames grow higher and higher.

Kyle drove for the rest of the day, until he was far outside the infested area and the sun was nearly set in the sky. He’d headed further north, towards the mountains and, as all the locals knew, towards the mansions and vacation homes. The wrought-iron gate of one such residence was hanging open, and he took that as an invitation to drive in.

After what must have been a mile or more of driving through nicely manicured forests and lawns that were only now starting to grow wild, the mansion came into view. It was massive, two stories and spread out over the space of a dozen normal houses. The lawn was covered in zombies, half the windows were shattered, and the other half had bullet halls, but Kyle knew where he was with zombies.

“It’s a fixer-upper.” He said, in his best TV announcer imitation, and began to whistle as he stepped out of the humvee, rifle loaded and bayonet shining in the evening sun. He knew where he was with zombies.