The Zombies of Lancaster

  They were almost to the cafeteria. Aiden told them to wait until he checked it out, then come with the baseball bats and clubs and whatever else they had once he signaled them it was okay.

  "If they are all dead, we'll just bash in their heads. That way they won't wake up and come for us later today."

  "What if they are alive?"

  "Depends."

  "On what?"

  "On if they are infected. How will we know for sure?"

  "We won't. We just need to be double certain they aren't."

  "How?"

  "We'll strip them like we did all the others and like we've done to ourselves. If they don't like it, tough shit. We have to be sure if we want to live."

  "If they are bit, we will kill them right here and now. No waiting. If they are still alive and unbit we will allow them to march downtown with us. There's got to be adults down there with guns and equipment who can help protect us. We can help the adults as well. This is our chance to show our stuff."

  "What if we are not sure if they are infected?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Let's say they look bit but say they aren't."

  "Then kill them. If we are wrong, God will take care of them."

  "And if we are right?"

  "Then God will deal with that, too. Whatever. We can't leave future droolers behind without dispatching them. Otherwise, we'll have to kill them later, and later we might not have the upper hand."

  Aiden was the first of the rescuers to enter the cafeteria. At first, he stood back and looked. The scene was reminiscent of Dante's Inferno which Ralph and Aiden had both studied in their world literature classes just a month ago. Droolers all over the place, casually eating what was left of their fellow students. Each zombie kneeled down all coated in blood from head to foot. They also seemed mesmerized by the deliciousness of the human dinners they were stuffing themselves with. None of them noticed any of the football students with clubs and bats.

  The high school athletes fanned out through the room, and on the hand signal from Ralph they started bashing zombie brains, or what was left of them. The bats and clubs fanned upward then downward in rapid succession as they destroyed their skulls. The cracking bones and screams of the dead ones filled the large room. Blood splatter flew through the air. The pellets of red soiled the already splattered batters who had been doing the same thing in other parts of the high school in their desperate fight to escape from their entrapment alive. In twenty minutes, they were mopping up, poking at what was left of the brains and bodies that seeped across the cafeteria floor. The gore had spread itself everywhere. The floor looked like a pond of red vomit that had poured from a humongous dinosaur that had bled out during its last moments.

  As they poked into the remains and smashed the skulls of the dead to insure they would stay that way, they stumbled through what was left of many of their friends and classmates.

  Each time they stomped or bashed a skull, they yelled the word, "Clear!"

  "Clear!"

  "Clear! Clear! Clear!"

  "Clear!" they shouted one by one.

  Finally, the cafeteria stood silent. All of the bitten were now dead forever. None of them would ever attack living people again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Highway Patrol

  The sheriff made the call to the Pennsylvania Highway Patrol.

  "I've got a real mess on my hands," he told Chief Byron Masters, who headed the Pennsylvania State Highway Patrol.

  "What kind of mess, sheriff?"

  "A big fucking mess. That's what kind."

  "What happened? Did you spill your coffee on your uniform at the donut shop, Robert?"

  "Very funny. I've got people killing each other all over town. The place has gone nuts, Byron. I need help here. I can't handle something this big."

  "People are killing each other, you say? Listen, this isn't some Amish joke, is it?"

  "It's no joke. And it's even worse."

  "Worse?"

  "Yep."

  "How so, Robert?"

  "After they are dead, they come back to life, stagger around, then start killing other people."

  " Are you taking your meds, sheriff?"

  "I don't take meds. Listen to me, Chief, this is an emergency. I'm not kidding or messing around. In fact, I'm afraid for my life and my family's life."

  "Are they armed?"

  "Their arms are lifted sort of. They keep them in front, almost like they are sleep walking."

  "Bullshit! If you are on drugs, I'm going to arrest you myself, sheriff."

  "No. No. I'm not on drugs. Wait a minute. Here's my deputy, Dimmie. Tell the Highway Patrol Chief I'm not high, and this is no joke."

  "Chief?" Dimmie asked over the phone.

  "Yep. Your boss is on drugs, son. You need to disarm him."

  "No. He's not on drugs. People are killing each other. Not only that but they are creating mayhem on each other."

  "Mayhem?"

  "They are tearing open their bodies and pulling out their guts and eating them, sir."

  "Bull crap. If this is a joke, you'll never serve in a law position again."

  "Fuck serving, sir. And this isn't a goddam joke. You better get some state trooper's asses down here stat. And you better be accompanied by the goddam national guard, FBI, and CDC, or I'm going to be literally a slab of fucking meat to eat here, sir! I'm not shitting you. Lancaster has a pretty little shit happening here and we are going to all be dead!"

  Dimmie sent Chief Masters half a dozen digital pictures of zombies eating the guts of Lancaster citizens.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Convinced?”

  “Yes. But if you've Photoshopped this bullshit, your nuts are mine, Dimmie.”

  “What's your decision, Chief Masters? We cannot hold this town if we don't get help right away.”

  "I'm calling the Governor, Dimmie. Let me have the sheriff."

  "Hello, Byron?"

  "I believe you. I'm calling everyone including the Governor. I'll cut all access to the town and bring every trooper and National Guardsman to you that the Governor authorizes. And if it's a joke, your fucking careers are history, and you'll be incarcerated the rest of your born days if I have anything to say about it. In fact, if you are lying here, I promise I will personally claw your eyes out all by myself."

  "I wish," Sheriff Wilson said. "I really wish. But it's the damned honest truth, sir."

  "I'm on it. I'll be there myself in one hour."

  "Thanks, Byron."

  "Save me a donut, sheriff."

  "Very fucking funny."

  The Chief laughed. If this was a joke, he'd skin the man with his own hands.

  #

  It seemed like hours, but it was only thirty-five minutes when three Pennsylvania Highway Patrol cars marked with the letters P.H.P. rolled into town with their sirens blaring. The sheriff met them at the town's entrance.

  "What's this all about, sheriff?"

  "It's about the end of the damn world," the sheriff said.

  "That bad?"

  "Worse."

  "What can we do?"

  "Try to save as many as we can," he said. "I think half the town is infected with this."

  "A disease?"

  "The Amish virus," Sheriff Wilson said.

  "Never heard of it."

  "I made the name up myself. We had to call it something. I discovered it first, so I get to name it. Got that?"

  "Right on, son."

  "Yea, well it's bullshit. That's what it is. If it gets out of the county and into Philadelphia or State College, it'll fan out worldwide in a matter of hours. This thing is traveling through town fast. Within an hour, anyone infected is dead, then the corpse comes back to life as an angry fucking crazy who wants to kill everything in front of it."

  "You ain't on dope?"

  "Tell you what. Follow me in your car. You'll see exactly what I mean. Whatever you do, don't leave your car. If a drooler tries to block your vehicle, ru
n him down. He's already dead. What you are seeing is not human. Each zombie is only an ambulating corpse hunting for someone to kill and eat."

  "Can these things be killed?"

  "The only way to kill them is to totally destroy their heads. Shooting them right in the middle of the forehead seems to work. Or take a billy club and crush their skulls in. But you have to hit them hard enough to crack their skull and completely smash it in. Later, if you get a chance, make certain by stomping their skull into the ground with your boot. Otherwise, they are likely to wake up, come back and attack again."

  "Show me when we get there. I want to see this, before I'm going to be doing that to anyone myself. I want to see you doing it to at least one of them, before I'll even consider it."

  "You got it. Now, let's proceed downtown to the big show, guys."

  Their cars followed him into town. Along the way they saw droolers mulling about, staggering this way and that across the streets, looking for anyone alive they could either see or smell.

  "They are hunting," the sheriff said, over his radio. "Looking for fresh meat to kill."

  "Right on, big brother."

  They came onto a group of three strollers, bent over and tearing a corpse's stomach open, eating his intestines.

  "Lunch time!" the sheriff said. "Now watch what I do, and don't get yourself bit. You can push them backwards with a pole or a shotgun. They have very little force in them. They are nearly dead is what they are. Now watch me."

  He got out of the car and approached the three feeders. On his walkie talkie he said, "Now, I'm going to kill them. First, the baton." He raised his baton and brought it down through the skull of a zombie, crushing its bones. "There. That one's dead for good. He's silenced. The others are still feeding. They are not very observant. Now, I'll use the shotgun butt."

  He cracked the skull of the next zombie in line. "See. The skull shatters and he's finished. Now, I'm going to shoot the last one. I have to destroy the part of its brain that's not quite alive. That means anywhere I shoot as long as it's in the main part of the skull, and he's terminated. Especially if I stomp his skull into the ground to prevent him from coming back forever.

  The sheriff walked up to the feeder and placed his gun barrel against the corpse's skull. The corpse paid no attention. He pulled the weapon's trigger, and the skull exploded. The blood flew out of the other side where the exit wound gushed open. Blood pellets sprayed from his brain. Down he went.

  "That's all there is to it. Easy as pie. If there's too many for bullets, use a baseball bat or a two-by-four to smash their skull. They are slower than you, so you have an advantage. The only way they get you is if they surprise you. If you are bitten, I'll have to kill you, and I will. Otherwise, in less than an hour you'll be resurrected and become one of them trying to eat the rest of us."

  "You are shitting me."

  "Do I look like I'm enjoying this?"

  "No. Only, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen."

  "Okay, then."

  "There is this one thing more, however."

  "What is that?"

  "We can't be picky. If you think they are infected, just kill them. Otherwise, they will overrun us."

  He went to his cell phone and called the Chief of the Patrol.

  "Chief? The bastard is right. He ain't lying. Get the fucking National Guard out here, stat. Lancaster looks like Zombieville, Chief. Yea. That's what I said. Zombieville, sir. No. I'm not shitting you. Now, when you get here, you stay in your car or they will kill your ass, sir. Be careful when you get here. Yes, I'm serious! Now, move it!"

  #

  Chief Byron Masters had never heard so much tripe in his thirty-seven years in law enforcement. He'd never heard of people going crazy and biting each other, much less ripping out their family's and best friend's guts and eating them. What had this world come to? This is exactly what TV and Hollywood movies had done to mankind. He told them this would happen. Well, almost. Even the Chief had never gone this far in his predictions. He might have predicted general social riots, but had not envisioned an entire town going ape shit like this one evidently had.

  He came in at about sixty miles per hour with his lights flashing. It paid to make a dramatic entrance if you were the last man on the spot like he was. He piled up his burnt rubber on the pavement just in front of the small gathering of forces whom he had called into this little hell hole, and by God this had better be exactly what was going on or his own ass was going up before the Governor's personal firing squad. That would be the end of his thirty-seven years of service to an ungrateful and poorly paying state government.

  "This better be damned good, guys! That's all I've got to say!"

  Sheriff Wilson extended his hand, and the Chief shook it.

  "Where's all this bullshit you've described?" Chief Masters asked him.

  "Follow me. The freak show is just a minute away. Bring your best guns, sir."

  The Chief exited his Crown Victoria and balanced his riot gun in the crick of his elbow. "I've just got to see this!" he said. It would be the gift of a lifetime of service to have a town where everyone had gone totally zombie. He'd finally have something to tell his wife and kids if that was what was going on, which he seriously doubted. The whole idea reeked of madness. Then, they'd listen to him. Not that he gave a shit, anymore. After being rejected by his family for more than three decades, he was used to whatever insolence they could dish out. He figured, even for this, his rejection by his family wouldn't stop.

  "Wait here, Chief Masters," the sheriff said. "And for Christ's sake be as fucking quiet as you can be. No use in riling them up any more than necessary. It's easier to pop them when they are unaware of us coming."

  "What the shit," Masters said.

  The sheriff disappeared around the corner. What he saw going on down the block was more than enough of a zombie showboat to convince the Chief that he hadn't been chewing on drugs.

  Sheriff Wilson came back and motioned for the Chief to follow him along with his retinue of enforcement agents.

  "Now be quiet," he said, "and whatever you do, don't let these fuckers bite you or you'll become one of them and I'll have to kill you. If you have to, shoot only into their heads. If they get close, kick or push them away. They don't have enough balance to fight you in hand-to-hand combat, and the only chance for them to bite you is for them to sneak up behind you before you see them. And remember. If they bite you, you are infected. I'll have no choice then. I will kill your ass on the spot. No offense meant but this is a true emergency. It's everyone for himself. If a drooler bites your ass, sir, your dead, and I mean business on that."

  "You are an insolent fuck. Do you know that?"

  "Just warning you, Chief. I don't want to off you. It's to save you, sir."

  The sheriff turned the corner and motioned for them to follow.

  What they saw turned their stomachs. Blood was all over the street. At least twenty zombies were feeding from corpses. All of them were blood splattered from head to toe.

  "Sorry. I couldn't clean them up for you."

  An officer threw up in the street. The intensive splattering sounds of fighting echoed off the old brick walls.

  "You have to shatter the skull to kill them," the sheriff whispered. "All we can do is kill them to clear the problem. They are beyond reasoning with. Besides, they are already dead. There only seems to be their motor skills that are still animated. They aren't people any more. That's for sure. In fifteen minutes, you'll figure everything out, but remember, you have to survive those first fifteen minutes, no matter what. So, heads up."

  He walked up slowly behind a small circle of feeders who were busy gobbling a woman's ripped torso, stuffing her bright red guts into their mouths. She was still alive and screaming. Their eyes were blank and dead as though they could not see what they were doing, and their movements were erratic and filled with muscular ticks, hesitations, and a kind of quirkiness than was almost indescribable. They were definitely not all
there.

  Sheriff Wilson shotgun butted the back of a zombie's head. It caved in offering an explosion of dead brain matter and reddish nectar that filled the air with floating blood pellets. The zombie collapsed like a dropped coat that missed its closet hanger. He did the same with the next eater. The zombie's head caved in and exuded the same mixture of brain and blood pellets in the air for about a foot from his skull as he caved and went down.

  "Easy as pie," the sheriff explained, "but be forceful enough to cave their heads in totally, and you'll have no problem. Just don't get bitten. Again, if they bite you, I'll have to kill you. I'll have zero choice, because you are infected and don't want to become like them. We'll all be your enforcer. It has to be done."

  "Holy cow," the Chief said, then he added absent-mindedly, "I'll just be dipped in shit. This is really happening!" The Chief moved forward and bashed in the skulls of three walkers. They went down like road runner cartoons. No resistance.

  "You were right, sheriff," Chief Byron Masters said. Now that he was convinced that the sheriff wasn't totally insane, he was more than happy to have a piece of the action.

  "I told you."

  "I'm a believer now. It just sucks beyond compare. And look at this blood all over me. We are all going to be a mess in a few minutes, aren't we?"

  "Yeppers. Soon, you'll look like the rest of us. And like them, too. You won't know the difference, except you won't be staggering around like they are."

  "Jesus. Kill them, boys! Let none of them survive!. That's an order!" He had never seen people eating other's intestines, especially when the victim still lived. The sooner they ended their sojourns, the better off the citizens of Pennsylvania would be.

  The small force fanned out into the street and began administering the deadly coups de gras. The animated dead went down without even moaning, as though a crushed head was their forte, if not what they sought. As they ended them, the small group wondered what it must be like to be so dead and still animated and desire to kill innocent people and eat them like this. It was absolutely the most disgusting thing any of them had ever imagined in their law enforcement careers.

  As they were almost finished, a huge mass of one hundred new ones came around the corner. Their arms were extended like Frankensteins, and their dead faces and eyes let the policemen know that no quarter could be given, because these dead fuckers were already so over the top and covered with their neighbor's blood and guts that no matter what, the police themselves were going to be the next generation of zombies unless they dispatched them into hell in the next minute. Except for that, it would be their own guts hanging from these god awful faces of death.