The Restless Dead

[majorhavoc]

Mrs. I am seriously loving that .gif in your signature!

[slannesh]

Really loving this story man, keep up the good work!

[beccashire]

I was apposed to reading yet another zombie story. To me they had all been played out and over done. My uncle kept on telling no no read this one it's differnt. OK fine I'll admit when I'm wrong. Your attention to detail is phenomenal. I feel like I am being placed right in the story. I am sure the looks on my face convey enough to let everyone know what I'm reading is in extreme detail. I'm not easy to gross out. SO brava on that front. Excellent writing and I look forward to seeing what you produce in the future.

[majorhavoc]

I’m still trying to clear my head from the after effects of Zoey's violent outburst. By unanimous agreement the rest of the group orders her to do penance by helping Lottie and Rebecca drag an unconscious Donovan into the police station sally port. Looking sullen and unrepentant, Zoey complies. Lottie and Rebecca accept the assistance without uttering a word and otherwise treat Zoey like a pariah.

I gingerly walk the rest of the way to the sally port, shaking the last of the cobwebs from my head. Francis accompanies me and explains that they’ve been camped out here for the past twenty minutes. In part to keep an eye out for Donovan and me, and in part because the inner door refuses to open.

“We talked about going around and trying another entrance, but that would have pretty much meant giving up on you and Donovan,” Francis recounts as we walk underneath the outer door of the sally port.

“I couldn’t have blamed you for that. You should have pressed on.”

“Yeah, but think about it, Bill. This place is crawling with infected. Who knows how many are milling around on the other sides of this building? We got to this side in one piece and we had that cruiser to hide behind. And just between you and me, I was getting pretty winded chopping up all those infected we ran into just to get here. We weren’t in no condition to head out and mix it up with another bunch of zombies.“

“Yeah, well that’s doubly true now, isn’t it?” I say in a raised voice. “Now that one of our own’s been knocked out on account of someone’s stupidity! Seems like everyone here has been using their head except for one of us. And all it takes is one idiot in the group to get us all killed.” I note my words are having an effect on their intended target. With Donovan starting to come to, Lottie and Rebecca have banished Zoey, sending her alone to the far corner. There she stands chastened, clasping her right arm around the elbow with her left across the small of her back. Suddenly alone and clearly stung by my words, Zoey is visibly fighting back tears.

“Anyhow,” I continue, lowering my voice and leveling my gaze at the inner door leading into the police station‘s interior. “This door is bolted tight, you say?”

I begin advancing for a closer inspection when Francis grasps my arm and whispers urgently. “The other reason we stayed put Bill, is because Zoey was ready to lose it. I’m serious when I said she was going to head straight back to Main Street to find you. She would have gone alone if I hadn’t stopped her.”

“Stow it, Francis. That kind of piss poor judgment will get the girl killed. She needs to learn to stop thinking like that.”

“Bill, are you listening? I’m saying she was worried about you. Really worried. You should say something to her.”

“And I’m saying there’s no room for that kind of sentiment anymore. I don‘t have time to say anything to that girl right now. But we’re all going to have a talk tonight. I’ve figured some things out.” I wrestle free of Francis and being moving again towards the locked door leading into the police station.

“Bill!”

“What?” I say impatiently.

Francis looks as though he's about to say one thing, but thinks better of it. Instead he offers a simple assessment. “You’re an asshole. That’s all.”

“Cry me a river, Francis.”

[Blackgunboy]

I feel ALIVE again.

Fantastic new posts. Keep it up please and thank you.

[ZeroT]

Wonderfully written! Very glad to see this series started up again!
Really enjoying all the character development and attention to detail.
Can wait for the next installment!

[Sheriff McClelland]

Wonderfully written! ...
Really enjoying all the character development and attention to detail.
Can wait for the next installment!

Well put . Couldn't have said it better

The descriptive dialogue gives a very good visual .

[The Mrs.]

Mrs. I am seriously loving that .gif in your signature!

Thanks, Major! I guess that makes us even, since I'm lovin' your story.

Edit: Aaw, poor Zoey. *sniff*

PS
Can't take credit for its awesomeness. Just included my name in there, but I wasn't the one who made it.

[DannusMaximus]

“Bill!”

“What?” I say impatiently.

Francis looks as though he's about to say one thing, but thinks better of it. Instead he offers a simple assessment. “You’re an asshole. That’s all.”

“Cry me a river, Francis.”

Man. If you're being called an asshole by Francis you must really be an asshole!

Nice additional chapters, MH!

[m249saw]

where is our moar?

[skarface]

Just read the whole thing! You're doing a great job, Colonel Havoc. Keep it up!

I like that you're keeping Bill consistent- he's always been terrible with women and he continues to do so.

Moar, please!

[Sheriff McClelland]

Just read the whole thing! You're doing a great job, Colonel Havoc. Keep it up!

I like that you're keeping Bill consistent- he's always been terrible with women and he continues to do so.

Moar, please!

Agree . I read the whole thing again from the start about 2 weeks ago . Bill & Zoe have had a long journey . Good stuff

[m249saw]

moar moar moar moar moar moar?

[majorhavoc]

It’s Rebecca that makes the connection between the locked door and the glowing red light on the panel mounted next to it. “I used to work as a police dispatcher. This sally port is for prisoner transfers and stuff like that. It’s designed to isolate anyone that enters or is getting ready to leave the building. I ran the controls sometimes where I worked. This red light is to let anyone inside the sally port know that the inner door is locked and secure.”

“So that means the doors are operated from the inside, which we don’t have access to,” I summarize dejectedly.

“Yes and no,” Rebecca continues, re-kindling hope. “There are two sets of locks, actually. The manually controlled ones, and then a set of automatic locks. The automatic locks work off a really basic fail-safe principle: this interior door cannot open until the outer door is closed. And vice versa.”

“So you’re saying all we have to do get this outer door closed and the inner one will unlock?” Lottie asks hopefully.

“No ..... what I’m saying is the inner one can’t open as long as the outer door is open like it is now. But if it’s been manually locked from inside the station, then this inner door still won’t open, even after we close the outer one.”

“How are all these locks even still working?” I ask, pondering the glowing red light. “Where is this electricity coming from?“

“Batteries or some sort of generator, I‘d have to guess,” Rebecca suggests.

“Solar panels,” Francis answers with conviction. “They’re all over the roof of this building. I’ve been staring at them every day for two weeks from across the street on the roof of the Shake n Bake. Around 4 o'clock the glare from those panels would make my head feel like the last morning of Bike Week.“

“Well, what do we have to lose?” Donovan offers, joining the discussion. “Let’s get that outer door closed and give it a try!”

“Hold on!” Rebecca counters. “I’m not finished yet. If manual lock for the outer door has also been activated, then the moment we close it, it won’t open again.”

Lottie, deflated: “Trapping us inside. That would be a disaster.”

“Yep, that’s pretty much what I’m saying. “

“Well who thinks up this shit?” Francis blurts out, throwing up his hands in frustration. “It’s like a freaking Chinese puzzle trying to figure all this out. I hate police stations!“

Rebecca, looking thoughtful: “Yeah, but the more I think about it, the fact that the outer door has been left open means the last time it was used, people were on their way out. It wouldn’t make sense they’d set the controls so all the doors locked behind them.

“Has anything made sense lately?” Lottie observes.

Almost everyone seems to have a point of view on the matter, and a chorus of disjointed voices fill the sally port, each offering a different opinion and course of action. In silence, I contemplate our next move, considering all the elements and possible outcomes, like a particularly vexing chess problem.

“We’re not all going to be in here when that outer door gets pulled closed,” I finally announce, startling the rest of group into silence. “Only one of us is. If the inner door unlocks when we close the outer door, then fine. We reopen the outer door, everyone moves back into the sally port and we close it again behind us. And then we all waltz into the police station together.

But,” I continue, looking each of our party in the eye. "If the inner and outer doors both lock, then only one of us will be trapped. The rest will have to find another way in, locate the control panel and figure out how to open that inner door.

“And what if the inner door opens but the outer door locks when we close it?” Lottie asks, also considering the various possibilities.

“Then that one person will have to enter the police station. Alone,” I answer ominously. “Find the control panel and unlock the outer door.”

“It won’t be far,” Rebecca offers encouragingly. “It’ll be near the door on the other side. Probably right next to that view port.” Rebecca points helpfully to the small, armored window just above the glowing red indicator panel. It’s little more than a slit, revealing nothing but blackness inside. Anything could be back there; an empty room or a crowd of ravenous undead.

“And if this one person runs into a zombie inside?” Francis suggests. “Or five zombies?”

It’s a possibility I’ve already considered, but can think of no good way of working around. No one says anything for several seconds.

From the far corner, Zoey speaks for the first time since we began discussing this latest dilemma. A small voice in the darkness:

“I’ll do it.”

[majorhavoc]

“What?” Rebecca responds, startled. “Absolutely not! It should be me. I’ve run this kind of equipment before.”

"No,” Zoey replies, pressing her case. “Getting stuck inside with both doors locked would be the worst case scenario, right? If that happens somebody has to figure out those controls from the inside. That’s when we’d need you the most, Rebecca. We can’t risk you being the one trapped.“

I mentally sort through the options, working the percentages. The choice is so clear it really isn‘t a choice at all. “Zoey’s right,” I say firmly. “If both doors lock, we can‘t afford it being Rebecca who’s trapped in there. She‘s too valuable in this equation. It should be Zoey. And if she gets stuck, well, we‘ll just have to figure something out.”

Zoey is pointedly not looking at me, but I can feel four other pairs of eyes staring at me in astonishment. But no one says anything because the logic of this approach is obvious. As the others cluster around the outer door making preparations to go outside, I walk over to Zoey and speak to her directly for the first time since she decked Donovan.

“Listen Zoey, -”

“- save it, Bill.”

“Just listen. You got a flashlight? Have you checked it?”

“Yes, Bill. I have my flashlight. And yes, I checked it this morning.”

“Check it again.”

“It works.”

“Just check it again.”

“Fine. There, see? Nice and bright. Like apparently I’m not.”

“Zoey, when I said that earlier -- I - I didn't mean that you -”

" - yeah, you did Bill."

" Zoey. I ... some things happened when Donovan and I were in that building, OK? The situation isn't what we thought it was. Things aren't the same anymore."

"You think I don't know that? That things aren't the same? I was just hoping that maybe we - "

"Things aren't how we thought they were, Zoey."

"I'm starting to see that things were never how I thought they were, Bill," Zoey whispers hoarsely, sniffling,

"Zoey, that's not what I'm saying. Not at all. I -"

“- let’s just do this, OK?”

“OK," I reluctantly agree with a sigh. "But when we close that door, if that inner door does open, you stay put, right?”

“I got this, Bill.”

“You don’t go inside alone unless we’re locked out. And then you don’t take any risks, understand?”

“I said I got it Bill! Now fuck off!”

[DTyra]

Can't think of too many things worse than sending someone you care about into danger.

[majorhavoc]

The outer door of the sally port begins to slowly rattle closed when Francis pulls the manual release lever from just inside the building.

Moments before, as I had made my way to the outer door, the other four passed me in silence and had a private word with Zoey. Even Donovan. In his embrace with the girl I saw true forgiveness, as I did with the two other women. The hug Zoey shared with Francis was by far the longest, and whatever quiet words they exchanged, foreheads pressed firmly together, I’m quite sure I’ll never know nor could even understand.

So focused I am on Zoey waiting by the inner door, that I don’t even notice Francis as he emerges from sally port after pulling the lever. Until he brusquely shoulders past me, knocking me two steps backwards.

“That door had better open up again, old man,” Francis offers matter-of-factly. “For your sake as well as hers.”

Zoey follows the diminishing patch of daylight along the concrete floor of the sally port until she is standing just on the other side when it finally settles onto the ground with a resounding thud. The sound of a crypt being sealed shut.

“Zoey?” Rebecca calls out in a raised voice. “Can you hear us, darling?”

“Yeah,” comes the muffled reply. “I’m going to try the inner door now, OK?”

“Sounds good, but just a crack, right?” Rebecca warns. “If it opens, you close it right away and get back here.”

“No problem. It sure is dark in here, I - hey guys! It’s changed to green! The red light has totally changed to green! That means it's unlocked, doesn't it?“

“I think so, dear.” Rebecca replies happily. “I really think that means both the automatic and manual locks on the inner door are off!”

“Should I even check it, then? I got my flashlight, so I could just open it a crack and -”

“No!” I hastily declare. My first contribution to this exchange. “Stay where you are, Zoey! If Rebecca says the green light means it’s unlocked, that’s plenty good enough for me. Let’s get this outer door open.”

Pressing the palms of our hands into the outer surface of the sally port door, the four of us strain to lift it. It refuses to budge.

“Uh-oh. Guys?” Comes a worried voice from the other side of the door.

Francis now: “Don’t panic, Zoey. There‘s a lever to your right. I had to pull it to lower the door. Try that!”

“No, guys, I mean big uh-oh. I wasn’t looking up when this door closed. There’s a big red light that’s come on above it.”

Outside, and without a word, we all turn our eyes to Rebecca, who shakes her head slowly side to side. “If the inner door is closed,” she whispers, “the only reason that red light above the outer door is on is because it’s been set to lock from the inside.”

Zoey‘s voice from the other side of the door: “Uh, Rebecca? I totally just heard that. This means I need to go and manually unlock this door from the inside, right?

“No, Zoey! That’s not what it means at all,” I say, struggling to find options. Whispering to the others: “She does not need to go through that inner door. We tried this and it didn’t work, OK? We can find another way in.”

“Guys! Stop whispering! OK? First of all, I can hear you anyway, and second, I’m not a child! Bill, we talked about this, remember? If the inner door unlocks but the outer one doesn’t, that means I go inside. That’s what we agreed, right?”

“It is what we agreed,” Donovan reminds all of us.

“Shut up, altar boy,” Francis hisses. “Bill, if you want to go around, you know I’m right there with you.”

From the other side of the door: “Don't even think about it guys! I’m going in now, OK? I’ll have that outer door unlocked in a minute!” We hear Zoey’s voice trail off as she retreats deeper into the sally port. Closer to the glowing green light marking the inner door.

[Sheriff McClelland]

Suspense ...

[majorhavoc]

Francis and I are looking intently at each other when we hear Zoey scream from deep within the police station. In desperation I slam the heels of my palms against the door and strain to lift it open. A second scream, much closer and more distinct as the other three join me at the door, groaning with pointless effort. More screams and the sounds of at least three pairs of furiously pounding feet.

I back away from the door in growing disbelief. Like the sound of Zoey’s first screams inside the Shake ‘n Bake, like the sight of her leading a pair of charging zombies farther and farther way from me. Like staring at her blood-splattered body lying pale and still in that ambulance gurney, I feel the tide of fate closing in, swiftly and with grim finality as I stand by. Helpless. Powerless. Bearing witness yet again to a situation I have lost control of.

My thoughts are in the present, but this feeling, this cold, familiar feeling intrudes unbidden and unwelcome from forty one years ago. A remote village in southwestern Vietnam. Mine and the weapons of all eleven of my squad mates are leveled and quivering in the still morning air. All pointed in the same direction. Some kind of birds calling out to their mates and to their young. The rising buzz of insects in the warming sun. The sound of a young child crying out for its mothers milk.

And that thirteenth weapon, that damn intelligence officer’s side arm, off to my left and pointed directly towards my head. Reminding us what kind of men we were. The kind of men who crept through the brush and the mud all night long to emerge like locusts from the jungle. Like carrion feeders. The kind of men who did things their countrymen could not do and did not care to know about. Ever.

“Bill?” I remember one of my squad mates crying out to me. Literally crying. “What the hell are we doing, Bill? This isn’t what we signed up for. We’re with you a hundred percent Bill! But please don’t pull that trigger, because if you do, we all do. Bill! What are we doing?”

I never could recall who among us was asking me those questions. I just remember thinking: a minute ago I was in control of this situation and I thought I knew what kind of man I was. Now I wasn’t in control and I was about to find out. And then, as casually as I might scratch an itch, I pulled the trigger. And that beautiful, beautiful morning erupted into a fiery hell.

“Bill? Bill! What are we doing?”

Francis’ voice, not my squad mate’s. Pennsylvania, not Vietnam. And the screams I’m hearing today are of Zoey, dying, a few feet on the other side of an impenetrable door.

“Com’on, Francis!” I yell, charging around towards the back corner of the building. “We run into any zombies along the way, you hit them once and move on, understood!”

“Once is all it’s going to take, old man,” Francis calls out, sprinting alongside of me.

I hear the shouts coming from behind us as we’re rounding the corner, and nothing would have made me even slow down, let alone stop, save for the distinct words “It’s opening!” coming from three sets of lips.

A moment of indecision. I look to Francis and realize I’ll follow him whatever he decides because I am so very weary of making the wrong decision. Without a word he reverses direction and sprints back to the sally port door.

As we close in tight alongside the building wall, I begin to see a narrow sliver of darkness growing below the lower lip of the sally port door as it rises slowly from the floor. With Lottie, Donovan and Rebecca standing safely to the side, I hit the pavement in a head first dive and whip my legs around, rolling under the three foot opening. My revolver is in both hands, hammer cocked, as I rise up out of the roll into a kneeling position, sweeping my aim frantically back and forth in the darkness. From my left, Francis slides into view, riding on his knees before rising into a crouch, axe ready for an army of the undead.

“OK, seriously?” I hear a calm voice calling out in the darkness. “That was a pretty cool entrance you two. Think you could do it for me again?” I follow the sound to its source, Zoey leaning nonchalantly against the police cruiser with her arms crossed over her chest. The cruiser, I note, is rocking furiously and several growling, menacing figures are visible inside through the reinforced window glass.

“Zoey,’ Francis asks, panting and incredulous. He silently gestures to the police cruiser and its occupants as he catches his breath. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, you mean these guys?” Zoey responds innocently, directing her thumb towards the entrapped zombies in the police cruiser. “These losers were definitely up to no good. So I thought I'd bring them in to the station for questioning.”

[DTyra]

Perfect!

[majorhavoc]

Zoey, it turns out, had not gone directly to the inner door like she told us. In a flash of insight, she opened both rear doors of the police cruiser before doing so. A precaution that certainly saved her life.

Her screams of terror were quite real however as the three zombies sprang as soon as she opened the inner door of the sally port. In spite of her panic, she relayed to us that the creatures were running at different speeds and were beginning to spread out behind her as she led them on successive circuits around the darkened interior of the sally port. Somehow she had the presence of mind to reject running back through the inner door. (She wasn’t sure she’d be able to quickly find a way to lock it from the inside, she explained). And she projected that within a few more circuits, the trailing zombie would be so far behind that it would be tempted to cut straight across the middle of the sally port and converge on her from the side.

From just outside the building, I listen as this remarkable young lady excitedly relates what happened next to a rapt audience of Francis, Lottie, Rebecca and Donovan. I’m ostensibly out here for a smoke, but the reality is I just don’t want anyone to see how badly shaken I am. This won’t do. It won’t do at all.

The nicotine for a change is hardly having any effect on my nerves. I suddenly feel like an old man again. With the revelations I’ve encountered today, I know now what I’m going to have to do. Problem is, I just don’t know if I have it in me. Or how long I can keep this up. Listening to the excited, happy voices from inside, I understand, fully and for the first time, why I’ve been alone all these years.

In spite of myself, I suppress a private smile as I hear Zoey recount that her first order of business was to somehow get the zombies bunched back together before risking entering into the open back seat of the cruiser. I can picture Zoey with that confounded look of supreme concentration on her face, even while running flat out. Wholly unarmed and working with nothing more than distance, closing velocities and uncanny intuition, the girl solves these life and death challenges like a mathematician would a complex algebra problem.

Zoey, we all learn, ultimately got the pursing zombies back together by crawling underneath the cruiser and kicking the crap out of the leading zed until the other two caught up underneath the vehicle and began to worm their way out on other side. Only then did she dive into the back seat, waiting until the first entered in after her before escaping out the opposite door and slamming it closed behind her. There she stayed, literally making faces at the hissing, clawing creatures, until they were all inside. Then she dropped to the floor, rolled underneath the cruiser a second time and slammed the opposite door closed with one arm while still underneath the vehicle.

When Lottie asks why Zoey didn’t just close herself in the cruiser and wait for our help, she replied it simply never occurred to her. And besides, she adds, that would just have left the problem for the rest of us to deal with. Who the hell is this young woman?

That makes me think of the question Donovan asked of me about Francis. Was it really just a coincidence that his path crossed ours? A lost soul if there ever was one; far down a very dark path. And yet inexplicably compelled to reject everything that came before in order to cast his lot with an old man and a young woman he doesn‘t even know. And what about this young woman: bereft and alone, losing both her parents in a violent, agonizing spasm of love, hate and compassion all rolled into one. Who literally shows up at my door step practically at the hour of my personal reckoning.

And all three of us: mysteriously immune to this disease, if not the violence it begets. What are the odds of us all finding each other, only now? And exactly what path are we on?

And why, for that matter, is Donovan around, asking these questions? In his own, undeniably irritating way, making me think of things I haven’t thought about in years?

[DeathDealer75]

This is GREAT !!!!

[DeathDealer75]

Great job Majorhavoc two thumbs up brother !!!!

[Sheriff McClelland]

Can't wait to see where they're headed next !

You're a talented writer . Easy to follow but still with complexity . I know you have a "life" to live , but that four letter word just keeps coming out . Moar !!!