

LZR-1143: PERSPECTIVES

Zombie Short Stories

By:

Bryan James

First Edition, Published by Bryan James at Smashwords.

Copyright 2011, Bryan James.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events or places is purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

A Note from the Author

Writing a novel from the first person point of view gives the author a host of tools to create an interesting story. First person narratives, like what I used when I wrote Mike McKnight in LZR-1143: Infection, are a ton of fun. You get to insert thought processes, annoyances, smart-ass remarks...in essence, an entire slate of emotions or thoughts that would be more contrived in third person narratives. What you lose, however, is the ability to truly explore outside perspectives. I missed that.

So this is a collection of third parties. Stories from tangential characters who appear, however briefly, in either the first book or the as yet unfinished sequel. In writing these stories, I am both enjoying the ability to get outside Mike's head, and appreciating the benefit of providing external perspective on the story that you don't get from following our hero in his journey.

Keep in mind that these characters rarely appear for more than several lines in the first book, and since the second book isn't completed yet, the characters from the sequel are as yet unknown to anyone but yours truly. I think the latter concept is pretty fun, and I guarantee the sequel will be a pretty good ride.

Even if you haven't read LZR-1143: Infection, these stories are their own. They are all based in the world I created with the first book, but stand completely by themselves. I hope that you enjoy them, as I enjoyed creating them.

As always, please feel free to drop me a line at lzr1143@gmail.com and let me know what you thought. If you're on Facebook, find me  here.

The Pilot

He had been flying airplanes for years. He started in the Air Force, flying the F-16. When his eyesight got too shitty with old age, he shifted to a classroom job but couldn't stand the monotony. So he signed up for civilian work. He'd been piloting 747's for United for 7 years. And in his entire career, had never witnessed anything as indescribably vile as what sat before him on tonight's flight.

"What the fuck is this?" Riley asked, spearing at the bland, blackish meat substance on his plastic tray. "I know airline food has gone from worst to shit, but seriously?"

His co-pilot chuckled, his young, unlined face cracking with mirth. The fading sun in the distance reflected from his aviator shades as he leaned forward to adjust one of the hundreds of dials and levers on the control panel. He leaned back, turning toward Riley, who sat staring desultorily at his food.

"You know most of this food is based on a bet, right? I had this buddy in Omaha, worked for one of the food vendors that supplies most of the airlines. Said that they order Grade E beef, the old chickens from the farms that can't produce eggs anymore, and use powdered milk and eggs for the recipes. Said these companies net like 70% on their sales." He laughed once, turning back to the large panoramic cockpit windows and silencing a flashing light with a twist of the wrist.

"And the funniest thing is that the passengers are fricking thrilled when there's a crappy meal on the flight, 'cause we never feed anyone anymore. So everyone wins."

Riley pushed some soggy peas to the side of his tray and threw in the towel. Or the fork, in this instance.

"Not everyone," he said, ignoring his growling stomach. He turned his attention to his coffee, ignoring the bottle of water resting on the tray next to it. His wife got on him about not drinking enough water, but too much water made him have to pee, and it was too damned uncomfortable to piss in these cramped airplane bathrooms. His 6 foot 6 inch frame didn't easily fit into the broom closets they made on these crates. Besides, coffee had water in it.

Trevor glanced back one more time.

"You know your old lady wants you pissing more. I could sell this information to her for a handy price," he teased gently, taking a deep swig from his own bottle.

"You go right ahead. You know how much she hates you. Give it a shot. I'd like to see how far she can lodge her foot up your ass before you say word one."

Trevor grunted once, shrugging unconcerned.

"She's just pissed 'cause of that one time."

"You got drunk and screwed her sister at our anniversary party. In our kitchen," Riley said, smiling despite himself at the memory of his wife's shrieks. They had almost replaced the granite counter tops, but damn, it was funny.

"What can I say. I was caught up in the moment."

Riley shook his head in mock resignation and grabbed his water bottle, conceding the point. At least in his head. As he brought the bottle to his lips, the door buzzer sounded, indicating someone looking to enter the cockpit. He checked the internal camera and recognized Terry, the chief purser, carrying more coffee. He smiled, putting the water down and standing up, hunching as he moved back toward the reinforced cockpit door.

Ever since 9-11, the cockpit doors on all major airliners had been refitted and reinforced, making it mandatory that the flight crews seal themselves in except for food and beverage deliveries by authorized personnel. Riley didn't mind too much; if it kept him safe, and his ship from getting jacked, he was all about it.

Terry smiled as he opened the door. "Thought you might want some more wake juice before we landed," she said, nodding to Trevor as she handed Riley a cup with cream and sugar. He couldn't drink the stuff black.

Trevor waved over his shoulder as he answered the radio into his headset.

"Roger BWI, this is UA 789 heavy, requesting clarification. Coming to two zero four at twenty thousand feet and holding. Clarify previous, over."

Riley got curious and thanked Terry, closing the door and locking it as he returned to his seat. He grabbed his headset and jammed it on his head, turning the volume up on the console.

"...say again, heavy traffic and ground concerns, over. Can't fit you in for at least an hour, UA 789. We've got some problems down here that don't seem to be going away, over." The flight controller sounded a little testy, but they usually did. He supposed keeping thousands of planes in the air at the same time, every day, got old after a while.

"Roger that BWI, but we've got fuel concerns, over. We hit a severe head wind en route and are down to just south of thirty thousand liters. We will be bingo on the gas in 30 minutes. Confirm copy, over." All traces of Trevor's previous flippancy were gone, erased by a hard-nosed former Navy aviator who knew his job. He glanced over at Riley, saying nothing. They both knew the score. They were on the last leg of a flight out of Mexico City, non-stop into Baltimore Washington International. They weren't going to wait an hour. One way or another, the plane was going to be on the ground in thirty minutes.

"Copy, UA 789 heavy. BWI out."

Riley keyed in, unable to believe that BWI's flight control just told them that they could run out of gas with 346 passengers on board, en route to DC.

"BWI, this is Captain Keyes, please confirm previous. Acknowledge that UA 789 heavy has insufficient fuel for suggested course. Request priority on runway 15R at previously scheduled arrival time, over."

Silence, then,

"God damn it, UA 789, you don't seem to understand. I got no time to argue. There is ... hey, shut the damn door before one of those things gets in here!"

He had clearly switched his conversation to someone in the room with him.

Back to them, he said shortly, "Fly as long as you can, 789. BWI over and out."

Riley pressed the mic again, repeating a call for an answer. "What the hell is going on down there, BWI?" Nothing.

Riley looked at Trevor, waiting for a response. Nothing but dead air. Riley switched to an alternate frequency and tried again. Nothing.

"You hear any other traffic from other airplanes when you were on before?" Riley asked his copilot, checking the fuel reserves and making quick mental calculations. "You call DCA or IAD yet?" he asked, referring to Washington National and Dulles, the two other metro DC airports in the vicinity.

"No, didn't try the other locations, but did hear a Continental 757 talking to BWI. Same concerns, same response. I'll try to raise them." He altered the dial setting and keyed his mic.

"I'm going to talk to Terry, let her know what's going on." He rose and reached the door. He turned back briefly. "I've got a bad feeling about this, Trevor." His friend looked up.

"Yeah, boss. I heard that." He started speaking into his mic as he turned the plane slightly to make the course correction advised by BWI. For now they'd have to stay on course, seeing as they didn't have any other options.

He jerked the door open and walked out, seeing Terry emerge from the stairwell to the lower deck as he turned around. The first class passengers looked up, some of them smiling. Nearly half of the cabin appeared to be sleeping, heads down on their chests and breathing slowly, empty food trays ignored for the moment.

"Captain, I was just coming to see you," said Terry breathlessly, looking around at the passengers warily. "Can I speak with you in the galley?" He nodded and they walked back to the galley past the tight spiral staircase to the Business and Economy Cabins downstairs. She drew the curtain and looked at him nervously, her blue eyes worried in her lightly lined face.

Terry had been a flight attendant for nearly 30 years, and had seen it all. Unruly passengers, bomb scares, fights. You name it, she had been there. And now she looked truly worried. Riley didn't like that.

"Some people downstairs are getting sick, Captain. Fast. Right after the last food and beverage service, people started to complain about cramps and nausea and fever. I figured it was just a little airsickness from the turbulence over the Gulf, but it's affecting almost half of the cabin. Some people are passing out down there." Her voice was a touch frantic.

Riley looked up and past her, out the small round window into the late afternoon clouds streaming past. Most likely food poisoning, he thought. They hit some really rough air about three hundred miles South of Pensacola, which accounted for their rapid fuel consumption and their current predicament, but that can't cause symptoms like those.

"Did you ask about any doctors?"

"Yes, but all I got was a podiatrist and two nurses. They've got no clue and people are starting to get real scared."

"All right, try to make them comfortable. Leave them where they are. Once we have a better idea of how many people have whatever it is, we can think about moving them together, just in case it's contagious. For now, we have bigger problems, believe it or not." He told her about BWI's holding instructions, and their fuel shortage. Her eyes widened once, briefly, and then it was all business.

"How about DCA or IAD," she asked. "Or other planes? They must know more about what's going on. Maybe they're rerouting to other airports?"

He nodded, impressed again with how well she knew her job.

"I've got Trevor on that now. Stay near your station downstairs, I'll call down when we know something. Let me know if anything progresses on our sick people. I don't want to make it worse by moving them, but let's keep an eye on the symptoms."

She nodded and drew the curtain back quickly, stepping into the aisle and almost knocking a small Asian man down in the process. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the back of a seat and looking up.

"I believe I'm sick," he started, and then fell to his knees as if his legs had just disintegrated. He collapsed onto his hands and retched onto the worn gray carpet. His body convulsed quickly, his back arched painfully. His head whipped back and forth several times in rapid succession, forcing vomit onto the floor in a wide arc around his position. A child sitting near shrieked and jumped into her seat, pulling her feet up quickly. From further up in the cabin, a woman's voice said softly "Jesus Christ, that's nasty."

He stopped vomiting and stayed silent, immobile, his head motionless, seemingly staring at the pool of sputum beneath him. One long tendril of mucus led from his mouth to the floor, vibrating softly with each slow breath.

Terry moved forward slowly, her eyes wide. The other passengers recoiled, never expecting to see such a spectacle in First Class.

"Sir, are you ..." she stopped as he raised his head. His skin had a pallid, gray cast to it. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. Riley stepped forward instinctively, feeling fearful of this man, but not knowing why. The man spoke, his voice hoarse.

"I ... think I feel better. I'm ... sorry, Captain." His words were slurred, his speech halted, erratic. But he levered himself up, ignoring the puddle of effluent as he turned around and clumsily flopped into his seat. He fitted his seatbelt slowly around his waist, hands collapsing at his sides with the effort. Everyone else watched, mesmerized. Terry turned to Riley, her eyes asking the simple question "Will this be everyone in a few minutes?"

Riley put his hand on her shoulder briefly, and stepped gingerly over the puddle towards the cockpit. She disappeared down the ladder, as someone raised their voice from the bottom of the stairs. He buzzed the door, and Trevor unlocked it from inside, staying seated as Riley entered.

"Sitrep?" Riley asked, his military training emerging as he buckled in to his seat and positioned his microphone in front of his face.

"DCA and IAD are both negative on alternate sites; DCA has planes backed up on the tarmac, while IAD has some sort of fire in the terminal. Continental 389 reports no radio com from BWI. We're up here with at least fifteen other planes, all bingo fuel." His voice was clear, but somehow weak. Riley smelled it then, the rancid odor of vomit.

"You okay, Trevor?" he asked, looking over at the wastebasket next to his copilot. It was half full.

"Good to go," he said, staring forward. "Had some air sickness a minute ago, but it passed." He burped then, swallowing as he did to suppress the impulse. "I think I'll hit the head for a sec. You good here?"

"Yeah, I'm good. While you're back there, check in with Terry downstairs. Half the plane has some sort of food poisoning, and it's starting to look pretty messy." He downplayed the illness, recognizing that if it was serious, Trevor was in the same boat as the rest of the ill passengers.

"Roger that," he said as he slipped through the armored door into the First Class cabin. Riley could hear raised voices as the door shut again. He quickly keyed the lock, sealing himself in.

In his ear, radio chatter had intensified. A Delta flight from Atlanta was circling the city at ten thousand feet, and having an animated conversation with Andrews Air Force base about no-fly areas. A commuter jet from Buffalo was diverting to Salisbury, in Maryland, despite warnings from a news chopper out of Baltimore that Salisbury was a no go due to low visibility from a forest fire. As he made new mental computations about their dwindling fuel, he heard a new player, this one an A-380, the newest Airbus model capable of hauling nearly 600 passengers.

"BWI, this is Emirates 465 heavy, please respond. I repeat, this is Emirates 465, and we are declaring an emergency. We can no longer hold in instructed pattern, and need to descend. Please respond." The accent was European, French perhaps. And it was very, very worried.

"Emirates 465, this is Andrews Air Force base. You are approaching secure air space. Please divert to heading two three zero, over. Repeat instructions for copy, over." The controller's voice was firm, unyielding, and deadly serious.

"Andrews, this is Emirates 465 heavy. We are declaring an emergency and need to descend. We are on reserves and have 546 passengers on board. We have no choice, read?" The pilot had no options. He was descending toward DCA, his circle of BWI taking him on a track parallel to the Potomac, approaching the city from the South.

"Emirates 465, this is Andrews. You will divert now, copy? Your failure to comply will result in extreme measures. Confirm copy."

Silence. No response. Riley turned his headset up, listening.

"Emirates 465, this is Andrews. Look out your port window, Captain. You need to divert now. Copy?"

No response. Riley knew the drill. There was an F-15 flying next to the massive airliner now, at this moment getting cleared hot.

"Jesus Christ Andrews, we're in trouble here! You don't understand! We have two engines off, and we're practically gliding! We cannot divert, copy? I repeat, we must descend. Please con-...."

The radio hissed suddenly, static reigning. On the same channel, a startled exclamation from another pilot, his voice loud and stunned. "Christ! An F-15 just toasted the Emirates flight into the Potomac!"

Riley checked the radar, realizing that it was now one blip short. Radio chatter exploded, pilots requesting status from ground control, each other, and the military. No one responded with answers. Just more questions.

The cabin phone chimed, and he pounced on it, eager for a status update from Terry.

"Captain, there is some shit going down down here!" It wasn't Terry. It wasn't even a crew member. In the background, people were screaming. He heard shrieks of terror, and shouts of anger. He even heard what he thought was a low, trailing moan. They couldn't possibly know about the fuel shortage or the circling. He hadn't announced anything.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Where is the chief purser? Put my crew on the phone now!"

The voice on the other end shouted, almost manic, "Man, there ain't no one left from the crew. You gotta land! Like now, man!"

"Son, I don't know what you're talking ab..."

"These things are fucking biting people, man. This is some fucked up shit! I never...ah, get the fuck away from me you ..." The voice got distant quickly as the phone was dropped; in the background, he heard a scuffle, then more shouts and screams. Fewer now.

He checked the fuel reserves and slammed his fingers against the keys that triggered the autopilot mechanism. Reaching under the seat, Riley did something he hoped never to have to do. He grabbed the handgun strapped underneath his seat, and unlatched the cockpit door.

Pressing his eye against the viewfinder in the door, his hand on the latch and his other hand clutching the 9 mm pistol, he couldn't believe what he saw. Sleeping passengers. A semblance of normalcy. It was distinctly at odds with what he had heard.

He slowly opened the door, locking it carefully behind him with one eye on the cabin. The asian man from before was gone, footprints through the vomit ending in the back row of the upper cabin.

An elderly man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts sat closest to the flight deck, head lolling to the side. A slight trickle of drool gathered in the corner of his mouth as he breathed in slowly. His hand dangled limply over the arm rest.

He moved forward slowly, noticing for the first time that the cabin was only half full. There should have been twice as many people in First Class. He looked down at the floor between the seats, seeing the spilled food and overturned trays.

Shit, he thought. There were more people here. They must have gone downstairs.

His head jerked up suddenly, ears picking up more than the drone of the engines and the sounds from below. Chaos reigned in the floor below; he could hear the scuffling and the yells. They filtered up through the spiral staircase like songs on the wind. But closer still, he sensed movement.

Stepping forward, he crouched closer to the floor, marking the footprints that led through the vomit to the last row. They stopped suddenly before the stairway. A foot protruded ever so slightly from the space between the seats. It moved abruptly, jerking and twitching.

His grip on the pistol tightened, thumb flicking the safety off slowly and deliberately.

From below, a bellowing scream of anguish, torn off at the throat. Then silence.

Footsteps thumped heavily against the bottom steps but another scream ended the escape attempt. He knew now that people were dying, and they were dying painfully.

He slowly circled around the far side of the next to last row, training the pistol toward the floor boards. He wasn't at all prepared for what he saw.

The asian man who had so violently wretched in the cabin before was crouched on the floor. A young man clad in a tee shirt and bermuda shorts sat strapped in to his seat, glassy eyes staring straight ahead. A grimace of pain shot through his lifeless face.

From the waist up, he was unmarred. His shirt, untouched by blood or signs of distress, still happily read "My Wiener is Big in Japan." A picture of a small dachshund was emblazoned proudly on the front.

From the waist down, he had been devoured. His leg muscles had been torn from the bone, hanging down from the calves and ankles to touch the blood-soaked blue carpet. His shoes, once stylish white and black athletic shoes, were dyed a gruesome crimson, speckled with darker spots of other detritus.

The asian man didn't flinch when Riley rounded the corner. He was intent on his meal. Hand darted from the legs to the mouth so quickly that Riley wasn't entirely sure what was happening at first. But the working of the jaws and the mindless groans of satisfaction quickly set in.

He threw up in his mouth. Quickly, quietly, but out of necessity. Gritting his teeth through the bile, he swallowed, raising his pistol and grimacing as he did so. The asian man looked up suddenly, turning his head quickly and animal-like as if he detected a sound or a smell. His dead, white eyes locked on Riley's. His hand fell to the floor, leaving a fist of meat on the carpet as he prepared to lever himself up. Riley's finger tightened on the trigger, aiming for the body. He knew that if the bullet went wide, the cabin could decompress suddenly and rip the plane apart.

Behind him, sudden sounds of thrashing and a low, guttural growl tore his eyes to the side for a mere second. Before he could track the origin of the sound, he was pushed backward against the back of a seat. The gun discharged loudly, and a burst of wet matter sprayed against the beige cabin walls.

The asian man, covered in blood and vomit and with a new hole in his upper thigh, was pressing himself against Riley, head darting forward, teeth gnashing in frustration. He kicked out, pressing his foot against the man's thigh and pulling his gun hand down from where it was locked against the man's chest. Giving him just enough room to press the muzzle against his chest, he fired again. A smoking hole appeared in the man's suit lapel, but he pressed on, unfazed.

Riley cursed, pushing the man back with his free hand, and bringing the gun around to club him with the barrel of the pistol. The small man fell to the floor, head partially caved on one side. One eye was closed, partially destroyed by the impact of the steel pistol. One eye was still open, and it watched as Riley quickly kneeled on its chest, inserted the pistol in the mouth, and quickly squeezed the trigger--all in one fluid motion.

The creature's head exploded against the floor, Riley's bet that the bullet wouldn't travel through two floors to the outer fuselage having paid off. He pushed himself quickly up, and turned to a nightmare. Between himself and the cabin, undulating arms reached for the aisle. The passengers who had been sleeping before were now awake. They stretched out for him from their seats.

He stepped back, prepared to shoot. But then his eye caught the blinking light over the nearest seat. He almost laughed. Thank God for the Fasten Seat Belt light, he thought.

Each of the passengers was strapped to their seat, and apparently none of them retained the knowledge required to undue the fastener. He stepped through the arms carefully, grateful for the wide aisles in First Class.

A hand from the third row locked briefly on his belt as he stumbled away from the back of the cabin. He brought the gun down hard on the wrist, hearing a crack as the hand loosened briefly. He sprinted the last few rows, turning around briefly before he inserted the key into the door to the cockpit.

His former passengers were all taken ill. Their eyes, glassy and white, rimmed with red. Their limbs seemed stiff, their motions jerky and uncoordinated. Mouths moved almost in unison as they stared at him, sensing that he was not one of them. Sensing that he was something to be desired.

Shuddering, he quickly turned the key. Behind him, the sounds of many feet on the stairway to the First Class cabin. Not wanting to wait and see who appeared, he slammed the door behind him and threw the security bar across as quickly as he could.

Almost immediately, the cabin door shook suddenly against its housing, as if a body had thrown itself against the door. He looked in the camera. Trevor was pinned against the door, two passengers pressing him against the bulkhead by the arms, heads bent low. His voice came through the thick door; Riley raised his hand to come to his aid.

"Don't open the ... ahhh, God Damn... don't open the door ..." his voice trailed into a scream. A loud, pained, high-pitched scream. Riley checked the monitor again. The passengers were bent over his copilot's body. Blood stained his white uniform, covering him and his assailants alike. He backed into his chair again, ringing the main cabin on the phone.

Nothing.

He tried again.

It rang, and rang, and rang.

No one picked up.

The fuel alarm trilled.

He silenced it with a flick of his finger.

The cabin door shook again.

The plastic and metal suddenly felt woefully insufficient as a barrier.

From outside, the sounds of people moving; of hands sliding against the door. Then another crash against the door. And another. And another.

He checked the monitor again. The screen was full of passengers, all covered in various fluids. Vomit, blood, and other matter littered the cabin walls. He rang the main cabin once more. Nothing.

He made his decision. His mind flashed to his wife, and his two sons. Their pictures were in his wallet, but his hands had other things to do. He turned the plane hard to port, towards the city.

"Andrews, this is UA 789 heavy, declaring an emergency. Request clearance to line up for DCA approach."

He knew it wouldn't come. He wasn't even lined up. Andrews could see that clearly. He was coming in fast and low, from the West. They would know. He knew they would act.

"Negative UA 789 heavy, turn South, repeat turn South. This is restricted air space. Your course is directly in violation of air space regulations. Turn around or you will be brought down. Period. Repeat for copy, over."

"Affirmative, Andrews. Lima Charlie. Thank you, and God Bless." He turned off his transmitter, pressing the throttle forward and feeling the jumbo jet eat the miles as it descended. He was aiming for the Potomac. It was the only place he could put down that wouldn't land in populated areas. Whatever was happening down there didn't hold a candle to what he was carrying in this plane. He didn't have the fuel for the ocean, but he could try for the river.

His air speed reached 500 knots as the engines powered the massive machine forward.

This time a different voice. "UA 789, please respond."

He ignored it. He knew who it was. Riley looked out his window to the sleek fighter hundreds of feet off his port side, twin contrails streaming behind. The pilot made a 'turn around' gesture with his hand.

"UA 789, this is it. You have 4 seconds to begin turn." Silence.

Then a real voice.

No more officiousness, no more orders.

"Please, man. I can't do this again."

The voice was pained, pleading.

"Please turn around. Don't make me do it."

Riley felt for him.

He had a job to do, and he was doing it.

But so was Riley.

The radio spoke again. One more time.

"Fuck, man. Have it your way."

The fighter disappeared into the clouds, its nose rising up and peeling back.

From behind him, the door cracked. The group outside had reached critical mass, and was pushing and pounding and slamming into the reinforced door. The structural plastic was giving way, steel bars bending to the weight.

The fuel alarm rang again. In the distance, the Washington Monument rose from the mall. Several plumes of smoke were visible from the city center. People were everywhere. The free ways were jammed. As the massive jet screamed over Arlington and Falls Church at barely two thousand feet, the number three engine sputtered and died, quickly followed by number two.

The door behind him shuddered as the passengers slammed into it. Locks burst. The door cracked open. Bloody, groping hands snaked into the cockpit.

The airspeed dropped; the stall warning blared. "Stall, Stall, Stall," it repeated, and he didn't have the hand to turn it off. He knew he'd have to time it exactly, bank drastically and sharply at the last second into the water.

From behind the jet, a streak of fire rocketed past the cockpit. A missile from the fighter. It flew wide, passing the nose of the plane by mere feet. It careened into the blue sky, blaring out of visual range to the starboard side of the plane. It had missed.

The door slammed open behind him, bodies piling into the small space.

From his time as a fighter pilot he knew why the missile didn't impact. The pilot hadn't gained enough distance to allow the heat seeker to arm. "Shit," he heard the pilot say softly, and knew that he was out of time.

The Lincoln Memorial. The Smithsonian. The GW bridge. He was here. The National Mall was in front of the nose. Numbers 1 and 4 died. The cockpit shrieked with electronic objections. Time to make the turn.

With an explosion of intense pain, blood exploded across the controls. His neck burned in agony, and his arms were ripped from the controls. He grabbed for them, but he was fighting several people. Or people that used to be people.

Shit, he thought, before it ended.

This isn't going to end well for anyone.

The snarling face of his copilot obscured his view of the impact as the airliner slammed through the cherry blossom trees lining the Potomac and directly into the national mall.

The fuselage tore into the reflecting pool, sending geysers of water and clouds of metal and stone into the grass and trees. Wings with silent engines tore from the body, cartwheeling into Constitution and Independence avenues, exploding against packed traffic and fleeing pedestrians. Chunks of aircraft aluminum became deadly shrapnel, as the fuselage rolled to its starboard side and turned crosswise, showing its belly to the National Monument as it slid to a fiery, shuddering stop against the World War II memorial. The tail, having been shorn off almost immediately, lay covered in water and oil in the remnants of the reflecting pool adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial. The nose was shattered, the cockpit gone. There were no explosions. No fires. There was no fuel left in the plane to burn.

No sirens blared, no firetrucks arrived. Around the crash site, some people ran. Most walked.

Very, very slowly.

From the snarled wreckage of the mangled machine, forms crawled. Men, women, children. Economy, business, mileage plus members, First Class, medallion elite. All were crushed and maimed. Bloody and broken. But they survived: not in mind, but in body.

They fell from the broken gashes in the aluminum frame, they shambled from the gaping hole where the tail had been.

Almost as one, they slowly emerged into the daylight, and into the new world.

The Boy

He hadn't even wanted to go on the damn cruise. Like most things in his life, it was forced on him by his parents under the belief that it would be good for him to have some new experiences. As he lay down heavily on the floor of the porch, being careful to ensure he was invisible from the street, he wondered what they thought about that idea now. Come to think of it, he wondered if they thought anything right now.

It was supposed to be a special event, before school started, that would allow them all to bond in the aftermath of his sister's death weeks before. They were still broken up about it, but it wasn't something he was eager to talk about. But they thought it best to try to bond together against the grief, get all the pain into the open. Paul was only 14--far too young to be into the idea of sharing anything with anyone, least of all his parents.

But they were in control and even the pounding beat from his mp3 player couldn't make them go away. They booked the cruise and his father feigned excitement. His mother barely managed to feign consciousness but when she spoke, it was with airy assurances that his father knew best; that it would be good for him--for all of them. Even he knew it was all an act. He just didn't know whether it was for his benefit or theirs.

It wasn't that his sister's accident hadn't hurt him or affected him, it was just that he had his own problems. She wasn't even his real sister. His parents adopted her from China or some shit like that 3 years ago. Her death was more of a tragic aggravation than a time-stopping event; but his problems ... now those were serious. Well, they had been, he thought, looking up into a cool, clear night sky and tracing the slow flight of a helicopter past the upper reaches of the Manhattan skyline. Fires burned in the distance, casting an autumnal red hue into the early evening dark and reminding Paul of where he was and what had happened.

He had run for what seemed like days after finally making his way to shore. But he was so relieved to get off the ship, the chance to run for his life rather than wait for death in a small cabin had invigorated his exhausted muscles.

The ship. God, if he never saw another damn boat again it would be too soon.

It had seemed like an innocuous enough idea at the time. His dad had presented the concept over dinner a mere week ago--had said his company had three spare tickets to a Bahamas cruise that were left over after some clients had canceled some business trip, and they needed to use them. His smile was almost as fake as his enthusiasm.

"Look, if someone doesn't use them, they'll go to waste," he had said between mouth-fulls of pizza. His large head had bobbed methodically as he chewed, the light from the cheap overhead fixture in the dining room reflecting fitfully off his bald dome.

"A cruise?" his mom had said doubtfully, small face frowning over a plate of salad, dark eyes never leaving her plate. "I'm not sure now is such a good time."

No shit, Paul had thought, turning down his mp3 player to listen to the conversation.

"No, no...now is the perfect time. After everything that's happened..." his dad had paused then, as if needing to collect himself, "... this is just what we need. A change in scenery to take our minds off of everything before we start back into the routine."

She frowned, looking up for the first time but simply staring at the wall behind Paul.

"I suppose it would be nice to get out of the house ..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes continued to track something on the wall behind Paul. He knew there were pictures of Julie on the wall behind him. Looking happy. Looking alive.

"Good. It's settled," his dad had said, unconvincingly trying to effect a tone of confident finality.

And that had been that.

The ship. It was named the Maria Lugosa and it was huge. The name was stenciled in fancy black lettering along the stern of the ship, and was visible even from the embarkation lounge hundreds of feet away. It looked like a giant, floating city; people swarmed everything in, on and through the ship, a constant, fluid supply of moving parts and warm bodies. Bodies that would very soon become somewhat of a liability to Paul.

He came back to the present abruptly as he stood, suddenly remembering where his father kept the key. Jogging to the side of the house, making sure to stay in the shadows and close to invisible from the street, he slowed to a walk as he approached the garden shed, carefully checking out the back yard, searching for movement or sound.

He opened the door to the shed, taking it slowly, remembering the squeaking hinges that his dad was constantly promising to oil. He slipped through as narrow an opening as he could manage, disappearing into the darkness of the small space. The metallic smell of rust and the sharp scent of gasoline welcomed him inside.

As he up-righted a small can of nails and picked up the spare key, the one thought that had been a constant irritant for the last few hours came back to the front of his mind: why hadn't they stopped?

He had jogged beside the car for at least 25 feet, and he knew the guy in the back seat had seen him. He even remembered the guy making a face, like he wanted to stop, but couldn't. Paul knew that was bullshit. The car looked all jacked up, but it wasn't gonna stop moving if they slowed down. And there was plenty of space; it only had four people in it.

Shaking his head dismissively, he grunted, still staring at the spare key.

That's the shit the world is made of now, he thought. And being honest with himself, he didn't think he would have stopped either. It's just hard not to take that kind of shit personally. At least for a while.

He remembered his dad showing him where the key was hidden after he lost his fourth set in as many months. They had walked back to the shed slowly, as his dad had droned on about responsibility or accountability or some shit. He did remember laughing after his dad tripped and fell, hitting his head. The banister had cracked a little, the sound of splitting wood lending more humor to the sight of the man stumbling out of control.

His mind returned to the ship. To his family.

The pounding never stopped. Over and over and over, the cadence of dead flesh on dead wood reverberated through the small space. Faces streaked with tears crowning bodies wracked with exhaustion sat or stood silently, waiting. Not knowing. Not caring. They had seen too much. There was no hope for survival. Not anymore.

There were just too many. But he couldn't accept that. He couldn't die like the busboy, torn apart as he cried loudly for his mother in Spanish. He couldn't die like the steward, pulled from above and below until the tearing, ripping sound of his navel opening to the cold night air silenced the groans of his assailants. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

But to live, he would need to leave them.

His head shot up, eyes wide. Getting his bearings, he stood, swearing not to fall asleep again for a good while.

Slowly, he cleaned a small circle out of the small, dingy window on the front of the shed. Grime and mold stuck to the cuff of his black sweatshirt as he shook his arm in an attempt to dislodge the green residue. It had been a gift from his grandma. His mom knew the styles that were cool and she sent grandma emails with the style and the color so she'd know what to get him. He didn't want to get it dirty.

Not like it fucking matters, he thought, abandoning his efforts and turning to the window and peering out carefully.

Although the night was dark, the shed was darker. So his eyes were able to distinguish shapes and outlines in the near black. The yard was surrounded by a tall wooden fence, and azalea bushes rimmed the short-cropped grass in neat rows. A small gas grill sat forlornly in the corner of the yard, abandoned in perpetuity to what was sure to be a life of rust and neglect.

Scanning slowly from right to left, he saw nothing moving. In fact, he had been fairly lucky so far. After getting to shore, he had instinctively avoided anyplace that might have had a lot of people in it or around it, like malls, stores, schools, and all that kind of stuff. He couldn't get away from going through neighborhoods, but after it got dark, it got easier. These things didn't see too good, and they were pretty damn slow, so if you knew where they were you could stay away, and as long as you weren't gang-banged by 'em in some alley, you could usually outrun a pack of them.

The catch was, they didn't get tired, and he was about ready to collapse. He leaned his head against the window frame, the cool, dirty glass pressing against his cheek.

The window was small, only meant for light and air, not escape. It constricted his torso, cutting into his waist as he squirmed against the metal edges. His father pressed him from behind, pushing on his legs, which were locked at the knees. His bag sat two feet in front of his face, on the deck of the ship. From behind him, the smashing, pounding noise from the doorway to the cabin had changed. It was no longer a solid, monotonous thumping. Cracking and snapping punctuated the heavy pounding; the moans were louder.

He moved against the bulkhead wall, twisting to pull his hips through the opening. His dad was crying, but his grip on Paul's feet was strong and firm. A sudden popping, cracking sound. Screams and horrible cries. His dad pushed, one last, incredibly strong push. He though he heard someone shout "I love you", but the sounds behind were lost as the rim of the window dug into his hips. He gave one final push and launched himself into space. He felt like he was falling.

He jerked suddenly to wakefulness. Drool puddled in the side of his mouth fell to the workbench he had been leaning on before he could close his mouth. He sucked in softly and swallowed the rest, drawing his arm across his eyes slowly. He needed to get somewhere safer. At least into the house.

Tired muscles pushed him up from the table he had been laying on, feet hitting the floor loudly in the silent night air. It was warm, and the slow feel of the late summer did nothing to alleviate his exhaustion as he slowly cracked the door to the shed and peered out into the yard. Finding nothing more objectionable than the lonely silence of a world gone drastically wrong, he moved quickly to the back door, key clutched tightly in his hand.

Reaching the screen door, he paused with his hand halfway to the brass knob. His had not been the only feet to make a sound when he reached the porch. He was sure of it.

He stood still, holding his breath. From the large oak tree in the neighbor's yard, an owl cried once, loudly. He almost screamed in horror, but caught himself at the last minute. Heart pounding, his hand slowly moved up from his side and the key found the lock. He pushed the door in gently, and came home. Someplace he never thought he'd see again.

Off the side of the boat, cries following him to the cold, dirty water below. His head was beneath the murky surface before he had time to take a breath and he sucked in water before he had a chance to think. Quickly kicking, he rose up, sputtering in the night air while trying to stay afloat with his bag weighing him down. The side of the ship rose before him, a wall of steel and horror.

Portholes, too small to allow bodily escape, but large enough to allow the sounds from within to loudly penetrate the night air, were small, gory windows to the horror from which he had escaped. People--or those who had used to be people--shambled about the decks above, bodies falling intermittently into the water or from higher decks. He turned to the shore, kicking as hard as he could, laying his head on a piece of stray wood.

He leaned against the door frame. The back door sat wide open behind him.

Shaking his head violently, he grabbed the door and, without thinking, slammed it shut. Gotta get some fucking sleep, he thought. The heavy wood crashed loudly into the frame, shaking the wall and rattling the dishes still drying next to the sink. He cursed softly at the oversight and quickly threw the deadbolt and drew the curtain.

The house was dark and silent. He didn't like it that way. Opening the door to the fridge, he caught himself listening for small sounds--any evidence that he wasn't alone. A slight wind had picked up as the night progressed, and it pushed against the glass in the windows with a feeble effort. Tree branches, highlighted by the bright moon, swayed outside the curtains, creating unearthly shadows. Claws of leaf-bound wood reached slowly toward the house, and then, just as slowly, retracted to their starting positions, unsure of what, or who, they were trying to capture.

Lines of carefully wrapped plates of leftovers stocked the top shelf. Jars of jam and canisters of salad dressing lined the door. The fridge was dark, though. Power was probably out already. That was okay. Gave him an excuse to eat more than he needed to. That half of chocolate cake on the very bottom of the fridge was not going to last long under these circumstances.

Feeling slightly better about his chances now that he was safely inside and soon to be fed, he smiled and turned to the kitchen table to grab his bag. It was still soaking wet, and it reeked of filthy water and sweat. The harbor water had been nothing like the swimming pools and lakes he was used to from summer vacation. It had been fucking cold, and unbelievably disgusting. Oil swam on the top and unnamed filth floated just beneath the surface. He was glad to have been rid of it when he pulled himself ashore. Of course, the water didn't have anything on the ship.

His arms were still exhausted from the swim and they shook with numb fatigue as he reached forward and lifted the cake from the shelf. His feet were hollow echoes in the dark hallway, and he hit his leg hard on the table before finding his way into the living room. He'd be damned if he turned the lights on though, knowing what could be outside looking for a snack. But he did need to know what was going on.

The television was housed in a large armoire with retractable doors that he theorized briefly would shelter the light of a television on mute. He arranged them carefully and made sure the curtains were drawn. Holding the mute key down for dear life, he pressed the power key slowly. The plasma flickered as the screen gave a dull green indication that it was powering on slowly. It went from green to blue, verifying the channel, but giving nothing more. The screen was blank. He checked the inputs, making sure the DVD player was off, and his Xbox was disconnected. Check.

No signal from the cable box. It wasn't off, just ... nothing coming in. He sat down slowly on the plush leather couch, thoroughly dejected. And outright confused.

This was new for Paul. He had grown up in a world of electronic stimulus. Televisions, radios, CD's, microwaves. Bluetooth, satellite radio, iPods and cell phones. He had only experienced a power outage once, and only for a few hours. Everything always just ... worked. If something broke, you got a new one. If the service was out, it would be fixed. The concept of something as immutable as the television being taken away was inconceivable.

There would always be 24 hour news, right? The satellites didn't just drop from orbit; the cables didn't pull themselves out of the ground. Yet there must have been some element of non-mechanized labor, some portion of the service that was subject to human fallibilities, that had been disrupted. It was just hard to believe. In the rare occasion that he wanted news, he always went to the remote. Or the internet.

The internet.

Duh.

His chocolate cake forgotten on the coffee table, he bolted to the foot of the stairs, then stopped. He canted his head to the side slowly.

In the oddest of times, the human body creates the most bizarre of illusions. For Paul, on this bizarre night, on this odd occasion, the sound was that of a baby crying. And it was coming from upstairs.

He listened for at least a minute, willing the sound to fade, or stop. But it didn't. Instead, it got louder. And more insistent.

On a hunch, he checked the front door, slowly twisting the knob to keep the motion and sound from being detected from the front yard. It was locked. He checked the deadbolt. That too. Of course, he figured, if he had broken into someone's house to escape the mobs of undead on the street trying to eat him, he might have locked it behind him too. The cries had gotten louder.

He thought for a moment and then moved decisively forward up the stairs. Moving slowly, he stepped over the third stair, notorious for its belabored squelching betrayal of anyone attempting a silent ascent. If there were a baby up there, he'd have to make it shut up. Those things could probably hear it caterwauling from outside. And if he didn't find a baby upstairs. Well, that's where his bed was anyway. And the computer. So no loss.

His parents' bedroom was at the top of the stairs. The second floor was well-lit from the outside. They had neglected to shut the upstairs curtains before leaving. As dad always said, the burglars in this part of the Island were too fucking lazy to climb a tree, so if they couldn't see your shit from the bottom, they'd move on to the neighbors.

Paul always got a kick out of that. Not because it was funny, per se, but because he always got that mental image of a burglar standing outside thinking to himself: "You know, I can't see shit from here. I could climb that there tree and peek in the top floor, but those assholes on the other side of the street ain't closed their curtains and [scratches ass for effect] well, I just don't have it in me to get my sneaky ass up a tree."

He snorted to himself. Still funny, that.

The kid wailed suddenly, the sound coming from his parents' bathroom. He walked slowly to the closed door and stopped, looking around. A wave of grief almost brought him to his knees as he took in the dresser and the night stands. He was suddenly and unexpectedly surrounded by artifacts of a different time. Alarm clocks they would never hear again, clothes they would never wear. Perfume that would stay bottled forever, socks that would stay balled up. The pile of books next to his father's side of the bed stood a silent sentry, joined by the hanging amalgam of clothes his mother had marked for ironing upon her return. Hated looks, angry words, and youthful belligerence had marked his last few years with them, and in the midst of his grief stood a deep and abiding regret.

He remembered his father's love of Christmas, and his unashamed joy of watching them open presents. He remembered his mother's selfless preparation of hundreds of school lunches, and her smiling appearance at every one of his stupid soccer games. He wept slowly, having somehow found the edge of the bed. Warm tears washed his cheeks and the salty liquid reminded him of the cold sea.

It forced its way into his mouth as kicked slowly with the current. The waves pushed him stolidly toward shore and away from the screaming wreckage of seaborne terror. If only the night would silence sound as it muffled vision. The stench of the dark water burned his nose, and the feverish paddling of his legs kept the icy liquid from claiming his momentum. Christ it was cold. A dark mass ahead of him moved suddenly. It was brought to the top of a wave, and crested down slowly, crossing his path neatly between troughs.

He kicked in reflexive terror, and his instant, unthinking response likely saved his life. The moon spit light out from behind a passing cloud, and he saw the head rear up from the water. The face was mostly gone, as if someone had pulled the skin from the bone like cheese from a pizza. The mouth reared open, and brackish water poured out between its broken teeth. And some from a gaping hole in it's torn throat. A hand grasped clumsily up from below its raft--a large, jagged piece of tarred lumber. It had been impaled and set adrift, either in the post-death belief by the assailant that it would really, truly, finally die in the water, or in a pre-death accident of some unnamed origin.

He kicked harder, pushing himself around the monstrosity, urgently seeking the distant shore. As the distance between himself and the creature increased, so did the numbness in his legs. Only five hundred feet to go. Then only four. Then three...

The child screamed again, and he woke again. The tears had dried while he slept, leaving a feel of dryness to the skin of his face. He stood, and looked around again, wiping his eyes. It was still night. He had slipped off again. He needed some sleep. Stepping forward quickly, he tried the door to the bathroom.

Locked.

Okay.

So the baby crawled in the front door, by some feat of acrobatics levered itself into position to lock it behind him, cartwheeled up the stairs, and locked itself in the bathroom. And was now, inexplicably, stuck.

This wasn't right. His day didn't need to get any weirder.

He tried the knob again, forcefully. Having no more luck than the first time, he stopped and stared, unconsciously putting his hands on his hips in imitation of his mother at her frustrated best. Potentially channeling his mother, he suddenly remembered the small key that was kept on the top of each door frame in the house. He had learned of that trick when he had first attempted to lock himself in his room after an argument with his dad. He ran his hand along the top of the door frame until his fingers brushed cold steel. Fumbling for the small key, he dropped it against the door and it clattered loudly to the ground, burying itself in the carpet. He fell to his knees quickly, anxious to get inside. The baby cried again, weakly. Now that he was closer to the door, he realized the cry sounded off - like the kid had something in its throat, or was a little slow in the head or something. Must be tired or hungry or some shit, he thought dismissively, as he groped in the dark for the invisible key.

If he had been paying attention, or maybe if he hadn't been so tired, he would have noticed the light change from underneath the door to the bathroom as something passed momentarily between the bathroom light and the small space inches from his blindly searching hands.

Finding the key after several long minutes of silent searching, he stood up and inserted it slowly in the small hole. It found home, and clicked in a comfortably mechanical way. He turned the knob slowly, finding trepidation only now as the cries ceased.

The lights over the vanity were on, glowing brightly in the blue-tinged bathroom. The exhaust fan was on as well. Must have hit the switch on the wall by accident when they flipped on the lights, he thought, and pressed his hand automatically to the wall where his body knew the switch to be. Flipping it down and silencing the fan, he scanned the room slowly. His eyes were forced to adjust quickly to the bright room from the dark house, but he caught no motion or sound from where he stood in the doorway. He brought his hand back from the light switch and stared at it. It was covered in dark, inky blood.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck, he thought, as his heart stepped up to an anxious cadence. He backed up one step, intending to bolt. And then the damn kid cried again. A pinprick of compassion warred with an avalanche of fear as he stood, frozen. Unthinking.

The shower curtain twitched, and he moved forward without thought, on impulse alone. The cry, an odd sound, made even more confused by the echo against the walls of the shower, filtered up and over the barrier of rubber like boiling water out of a pot left too long on the stove. His mother had always told him it was better to rip a band aid off than to pull it slowly. Besides, he had seen enough horror movies to know that the slow shit never ended well.

He pulled the curtain back so hard it ripped free of four rings, that were send careening around the rod excitedly as he struggled with the extra fabric. He stumbled back two steps and threw the curtain down, only then looking up to see what he had revealed.

He stared, unbelieving and so frightfully disturbed that he was struck immobile and mute. He wished he had been struck blind. He staggered backwards, falling to his feet and hands as he tripped on the torn curtain. Righting himself quickly, he pushed himself backwards on all fours, eyes staying focused front, wide and unforgiving of a world that would show him such things.

In what may have been a humorous sight in other circumstances, he crab-walked in reverse through the open door, his bloody hand leaving uneven prints on the tile floor. Prints that would likely remain for decades, until the house rotted or burned to the ground.

The bathroom door slammed shut. Then the door to his parents' room. Then the door to the kitchen. Then the door to the shed.

In the house, the gurgling, slightly odd sound of the crying baby persisted. A chocolate cake stood uneaten on the coffee table, moisture condensing at its base and making a ring on the pristine polished wood.

From the shed, the sounds of a portable music player turned up too loud. So loud, that the music escaped the headphones of the listener. So loud, that they penetrated a quiet night and reached to the street.

A man who used to be a man crossed in front of the house that used to be a home. He stopped, hearing the cry of something he knew. And hearing the sound of something he didn't. The man who used to be a man moved slowly forward, shuffling intently toward that sound. Moving toward the shed that held a child who used to be a son. A child that used to be a child.

The music drowned out the cries. It drowned out the pain.

And eventually, it drowned out the screams.

The Fry Cook

She recoiled in pain and anger, holding her injured wrist in her other hand. Stumbling back in confusion, she cried out in desperation, a cry of animal pain and agony. She was surrounded, and they looked at her, faces hungry and eyes utterly vacant. Her friend spared a glance for her in that minute, and turned to his own fate just as quickly. Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, suddenly more scared than pained.

"Listen shithead, you can't scream out like that during the dinner rush. You're gonna get us a health violation! People don't appreciate chunks of fry-cook in their food!"

Clark was the evening manager, and he took his job oh-so-seriously. He glanced furtively over his shoulder, blocking her from the dining area easily with his 300 pound girth. He was whispering harshly, flecks of spittle spraying into her face and drifting down into the french fries boiling unnoticed in the oil that had so recently scalded her left arm.

She glanced to the front counter, where Ray was smiling and taking the order of a larger bearded man with a gut the size of a Honda Civic. Several people stared into the back, bored and glazed looks turned briefly to interest in the aftermath of her loud shriek.

Sometimes she hated him for his complicit efficiency.

"You listening to me, dumb ass?" rasped Clark, poking her in the arm. Hard. "You got, like, half a chance left with me." His fat fingers rose up into the universal sign for small: sausage-like pointer poised millimeters from the kielbasa thumb. A gesture she was sure he was familiar with for other, more personal reasons.

"Then you're through. Times are tough. We can find someone to replace you."

He turned and started to walk away, glancing at the boiling oil as he did so.

"You burned the fries, Doreen. Start a new batch," he threw over his obese shoulder as he waddled to the back office, various folds of back-fat jiggling under his overly tight polo shirt.

She shook her head and looked at her arm, realizing as she did so that she hadn't said word one in response to his abuse. Pulling the fries out of the vat and dumping them violently in the trash with her good hand, she cursed herself silently for allowing the fat bastard to abuse her.

I'm better than this shit, she thought, dumping frozen chunks of potatoes into the day old oil. She carefully avoided the splashing oil this time.

"I can't believe I'm doing this shit. I used to joke about these people," she said under her breath. She bitterly swabbed her blistered arm with a hand towel, quickly replacing it on the counter for future use in sterilizing the prep areas. Things never got washed anyway, she thought, mentally removing the tinge of guilt she had felt in using it for her wound.

"Yeah, not so funny anymore, is it?" said Ray in a mocking tone of voice, walking up to her and holding a headset with a microphone attached. "Your turn at the drive through window."

She flicked him off as he dropped the oily headset in her outstretched hand, then promptly pocketed the bird as she remembered Clark's earlier warning. It wasn't a glamorous job, but it paid the bills until she could get her website up and running.

The young woman typing orders into the touch screen at the window glanced at Doreen as she approached.

"You only get the Big Mouth Fries with a Big Mouth Burger. You gotta order the Big Mouth Burger, mister," said the girl, chewing a large wad of gum loudly, and with large, jaw-opening chomps. She blew a large bubble as she listened to the response. It got larger and larger as she rolled her eyes at the customer's long response.

"Okay, that'll be 6.89, first window." The bubble popped on her lips and she sucked the gum back in loudly. She typed briefly on the screen in front of her, then whipped the headset off her curly dark hair and hung it on a peg near the door.

"Having fun yet, Sara?" asked Doreen, assuming the position in front of the narrow, low-set window. She quickly tapped the greasy screen in front of her, entering in her employee code. The old screen flickered briefly and went black. Then it rebooted. Piece of shit store. Nothing fucking works here. Whole place is falling apart.

"Yeah, well, I got a day off tomorrow, so suck it," Sara snapped back, squashing a hair net onto her short hair. A small trill sounded from her front pocket, and she snaked her hand into her pants, clutching a small phone on the return. She smiled and guffawed, replying quickly to the text message she had received.

Doreen grabbed a meal from the metal slide and shoved it out the window to a state trooper in a brown and white patrol car. His buzz-cut framed his massive head in an unflattering way and the look he directed at Doreen made her feel ... dirty. She shivered unexpectedly.

"Thanks, sugar," he said, smiling. The smile didn't touch his eyes. He held the look for several long seconds, even as he released the brake on the cruiser and started to slip forward slowly.

"Creepy bastard," said Doreen softly, watching him pull away. Suddenly, her left ear crackled with static and a high-pitched voice.

"Hi there. Hello! I'd like to order now," said the voice. In Doreen's mind, it belonged to a nymphomaniacal, rabid squirrel. A fat one. This is how she coped with the mind-numbing drudgery of her job. She had always had an active imagination, and it helped to dress voices in funny pictures. Kind of like imagining everyone naked when you have to speak in public, except she would never, ever want to see these customers naked.

"I'm gonna go to a movie with TJ tonight," said Sara from behind, filling a bucket-sized cup with Big-Mouth Shake. "Got any plans?" She slapped a lid on the shake and wiped her hand on her stained smock after licking a small drip of shake from her pinky finger.

"Nothin'. Might take another shift and close out." She had been working a lot of longer shifts lately. Ever since John left her for that bitch from the gas station. Chick put out more than the Big Mouth Shake machine.

"Hel - LO?!" The voice from the ear piece split her head, and she flicked the microphone on, absently noting that the computer had finally flickered to life.

"Can I take your order?" she asked, staring out the grimy window. In the distance, a man was walking slowly across a bank parking lot, limping heavily. He wandered in front of a car turning the corner in front of him, and the driver screeched to a halt, leaning on his horn.

"Yes, I'd like three Big Mouth burgers with extra cheese, and ... what do you want hun?" Small voices sounded in the background.

"Yes, and a ten piece chicken finger pack, and ... are you getting this? I don't hear you in there." Her voice was like a fat little squirrel finger pointing in Doreen's face. The man in the parking lot hadn't moved from in front of the car. The driver was getting out of the car, waving his hands angrily.

"Yes, ma'am, I've got it ... three burgers, extra cheese, and a 10 piece. Anything else?" The man moved toward the driver, stumbling forward.

"Don't you take that tone with me, just for asking you if you were doing your job right. Where's your manager? I should report your attitude...Jimmy, get DOWN from there! What are you staring at?" She screamed loudly into the microphone, fading slightly toward the end, as if she had turned away into the car.

Doreen turned the volume down and punched in the order. She added extra pickles and onions to two of the burgers, just because. The car at the bank hadn't moved, but neither person was there anymore. She furrowed her brow slightly, wondering where they could have gone.

"Ma'am, is that all?" she asked curtly, wanting to enter the order and move on. She'd had these types before. No control in their own lives, so they lived to boss around those unlucky enough to be in menial jobs like hers. She hated them, but couldn't do jack shit about it. So she took it. Like she took it from Clark.

Static crackled in her ear, then a loud, abrupt crack reverberated in her ear. Like someone had slapped the microphone.

No one had ever been bitchy enough to do that before. This was a new one.

"Ma--" she started, but was cut off.

"Some ... broke ... goddamn it!" These words came in broken, as if the microphone didn't work. Damn woman broke the mic!

"Pull up, please," Doreen said in a monotone, preparing to call back over her shoulder to Clark about the microphone.

She was utterly unprepared for the green Toyota minivan to plow into the protruding window, sheering off the metal and broken glass, leaving a six-foot gaping hole where the counter used to be. It sped through the awning and continued past the restaurant into the shrubbery lining the drive-through lane, then down a gradual embankment into a storm water run off parallel to the highway. As it disappeared over the gentle edge, she saw a small child's face plastered almost comically against the rear window--right above a bumper sticker: My Honor Student is Smarter Than Your Honor Student.

She stood stock still, mouth wide open, hands in the air. Water from a sliced hose poured into the driveway, and a piece of concrete the size of her head fell and shattered on the asphalt. The fumes of the restaurant's own cooking wafted back into the now-open space.

Almost vacantly, she glanced up to the bank parking lot and noticed that the limping man was standing near the trunk of the car, staring at her. Just staring. No sign of the driver. A tall woman emerged from the bank, turning around to lock the door behind her. Limping man turned quickly, and moved toward her.

"What the fuck?!" Clark's voice was a shrill mockery of his huge size. He lumbered to the gaping wound in the side of the store and stood next to Doreen.

"That lady ..." she started, but couldn't finish. She didn't know what happened. But someone was walking over the embankment from where the mini-van had disappeared. And they were covered in blood.

Doreen never liked monster movies; she just didn't have it in her to watch what she knew to be inevitable. The slow turning of the head to the waiting killer, the predictable closing of the mirrored vanity door to reveal someone standing behind the protagonist, the camera tricks that made you shriek involuntarily. But most of all, she couldn't take the blood. She hated it. Even the sight of a pin prick on a finger made her queasy.

As Clark gaped in astonishment at the now shuffling form of an eleven year old girl, agonizingly making her way toward the crumbled wall of the drive-through area, she slowly backed up in disgust and horror. The child was dripping with blood and, as she got closer, she realized the girl must be in shock. Several large wounds speckled her face and arms, including what appeared to be a compound fracture of the left leg. Shards of bone stuck awkwardly out of a punctured shin, and the foot dragged uselessly at an impossible angle. But the child limped forward, moving slowly, eyes downcast and gray.

She backed in to the food prep table as Clark shook out of his daze and shouted, "Somebody call 911!"

He carefully moved his obese body over shards of broken cement and glass and picked his way toward the child. From the dining room, Ray answered and moved toward the phone. Most of the diners were glued to the windows, staring at the spectacle unfolding outside.

Doreen watched the patrons, their food long forgotten in front of them. She stared purposefully away from the window, hoping to avoid catching any glimpse of blood. She was a damn fry cook; she didn't sign up for this paramedic shit.

Ray was repeatedly dialing into the phone, clearly frustrated at something. Sara shouted across the kitchen to him.

"What'd they say? They on their way?"

"No fucking answer," he said, disbelievingly. He punched the three digits into the phone for what was likely the twentieth time. "Nobody. No recording, no hold music. Nothin!"

Sara was staring out the window, and she moved her head slowly to the left, her voice rising on octave higher as she gasped.

"We're gonna need a couple ambulances, so they better pick up soon!"

Mom and the other kids had exited the vehicle and were moving toward the glass. They moved slowly too; their feet dragging, their mouths slack. One child had some sort of figurine apparently lodged in his thigh; the other was missing a large portion of flesh from it's arm.

The diners sat, staring. One man reached for his cell phone, pulling it out of a small holster on his belt and aiming it at the injured people, snapping digital pictures. Another woman was already talking on hers, relaying events to the party at the other end of the line in a soft tone. A third man leaned against his table, oblivious to the events outside. Doreen stared, wondering how he could ignore the unfolding disaster outside.

He wore a simple blue shirt tucked into khaki pants. A full on Gap commercial. Brown loafers tapped a disharmonious cadence on the ground. He was grasping his head, pulling at the hair of his temples. A soft, low moan of pain was barely perceptible as he rocked slowly in the cheap aluminum dining chair. A half-consumed bottle of mineral water lay on its side on the table, next to a burger wrapper and several fries.

She moved toward the dining room, thinking to offer aid. As she stepped around the counter, a woman screamed. Several people stood quickly, sending drinks and burgers to the dirty floor. A man pointed. Another woman gasped.

In spite of herself, Doreen moved to the window.

Clark was stumbling in reverse, flailing his arms. Vast quantities of arm fat quivered with each gyration as he reversed, trying in vain to dislodge the small child's face from his neck.

She clung like a beast possessed, small limbs locked on Clark's vast girth. Her head moved up and down, left to right, pulling and ripping as fast as she could. Clark's blood covered her face, mingling with the already half-dried blood of her own. She pulled her face back once, parcels of food still clinging to her lips, and stared at the window. With vacant, strikingly white eyes, she noted her next possible meals, conveniently kept under glass. Clark stumbled and fell, his back slamming into one of the support pillars on the other side of the drive-through alley, his head cocked too far to one side as she continued her meal.

Mom and her two smaller children moved closer, having covered the distance from the gully in a remarkably short time. Doreen backed away from the window, hearing people talk loudly and bolting through the exit doors on the other side of the restaurant. From behind her, she heard Sara scream. She turned quickly, searching for the danger. Then the world disappeared.

She dreamed of worms. Hungry, slimy things that crawled from the earth. Her hand was buried in the deep, dark loam of a forest clearing. Where she should have felt cool dirt, however, she felt nothing. No dirt, no cold. Nothing. But the worms she felt.

They slithered and squirmed, making their way from her fingers to her shoulder, eating and biting. They moved slowly, deliberately. No piece of flesh was left intact, no drop of blood spared. She felt little pain. No burning, searing agony. No weakness from the loss of blood. She felt nothing human.

She fluttered her eyes, opening them slowly. The world was in gray scale; there were no colors. Her eyes felt as if they were shrouded in cloth or scaled over with semi-opaque lenses. She felt ... nothing. Her mind was foggy. She couldn't remember where she was or why she was staring at the dingy ceiling. A silver-gray name tag lay in a pool of black liquid. Doreen. Her name was Doreen. This much she remembered.

Leaning on her one hand, she reached for the name tag with her other. Her hand wouldn't respond. Something pulled her back. She couldn't make it move.

In the distance, her oddly perceptive ears heard everything. Screams, breaking glass, the popping sounds of fireworks or gunfire. And chewing. She heard chewing. And it was close.

She slowly turned to the side, now feeling slightly cold. Something tugged at her shoulder, pulling her head all the way around as she lost her balance and fell down hard, seeking to break her clumsy fall from a seated position with her free hand. It wouldn't respond. She couldn't make it move.

She looked up, following the chewing noises with her near useless eyes. Long, red strands led from her shoulder to the mouth of the moaning customer in the khakis. He wasn't in pain anymore. Quite the contrary. He was very much enjoying himself.

Her arm, for all intents and purposes, was gone. A gleaming white shard of bone scraped against the floor as she squirmed, spreading more black liquid on the ground. She felt the bone grate against the dirty tile, but again, no pain. Nothing.

She lay her head back down as the khaki-clad man pushed his hand, almost gently, against her chest. His chewing paused. His eyes fell on hers. He simply stared, waiting. She blinked. Slowly, tiredly.

Now she felt cold, and very sleepy. She could rest for a moment. Then ... call for help. This couldn't be happening. It was a dream. It had to be. She closed her eyes and let the worms take her. She could feel the dirt now. It was cool and gritty, like it was supposed to be. All was well.

The man stared, gray eyes unblinking. He felt her chest stop moving. He felt the blood stop pumping. He leaned back, levering himself to his feet. Some impulse, some innate knowledge pushed him away. He knew, somewhere deep down, that this one wouldn't taste right anymore.

But he was still hungry.

So he moved on.

Searching.

The Inmate

Power: when you have none, you detest those above you; when you have it all, you scorn those without it. Hank had gone from one to the other, and he liked where he ended up.

His hadn't been an easy childhood. He had lived for years in the shadow of an abusive father, and had learned quickly that power was not something you tried to gain, but something you used if you had. Then you acquired more. His dad never hesitated.

From the very first time Hank could remember, there was no give, no love. At the age of 7, Hank learned his first lesson.

Cry at night? The fist.

Hungry for supper? A sound beating.

Home late? Two missing teeth, a concussion and the lesson soundly learned that you damn well play by the rules or learn to break them silently.

If you don't die from an upbringing like that, you got stronger. And smarter. That was Hank.

When he was a kid, he started off small by pulling legs off spiders, lighting ants on fire, and taking pot shots at small birds with a bee-bee gun. But that wasn't enough. Not even close. He never got a satisfying thrill from a scream or a cry of terror. Just silence. And one can't have his mettle tested with silence. You can't get stronger and faster and better if you can't test yourself properly.

So he moved on. He kept looking for the power that he knew he lacked. He yearned for it. Needed it.

As a teenager, his world opened up a little more. With a driver's license and a full day of school to skip, his time was his own. His father was drunk or sick most days, so didn't give a flying dog fart where Hank was or what he was doing. So he could just take off in the morning like he was going to school, and spend the day the way he liked it. Watching.

He watched people, mostly. Some days he'd sit on the Memorial Bridge overpass, watching cars streak underneath. He'd imagine creative ways to damage the cars as they went under. In his mind, it was boulders and meteors, rebar and ball bearings—all sorts of items that became dangerous at high speeds when connected with shattered glass.

Some days, he'd go to the zoo. There was a simple purity in animals--a secure knowledge that they knew who they were and why they did what they did.

That was refreshing to Hank. He spent his young life repressing his own ambitions and desires. He gloried in the actions of the animals, moving without remorse or shame. If they wanted food, they'd eat it. If they wanted to shit, they'd shit. If they wanted to screw ... well, you get the picture.

His favorite place, especially as he got older and braver, was the mall. It was kind of like the zoo--but for people. He needed to see people, be around them. He needed to feel the energy and closeness. Being around so many at one time, armed with the knowledge that, if he wanted to, he could reach out and kill anyone that walked by him ... that was it. That was the thrill. That was power.

You didn't quite get that from the bridge. People were too removed there, too isolated. The mall though, that was real. That was close. That was personal.

It wasn't until a hot summer night when he was 17 that he truly knew what his life was about; it wasn't until then that he appreciated his power.

His father had been dying slowly for years. When Hank was 14, his dad was diagnosed with emphysema. He had smoked for decades, and it was hardly a surprise. As he got older and sicker, he got meaner and more detestable. He sat in his easy chair, smoking and drinking; living on disability and a piss-poor attitude.

One night, Hank got home late after another long session at the mall. He slammed the door, and threw his coat on the hook, turning to find his father in his chair, like normal. But today, his face had a look of pain and his body was contorted. Hank approached him very slowly, not speaking.

His dad's eyes flew open, gasping for air.

"Call an ambulance...I can't...breathe!" His breath was faint, his voice breathy. His arms clutched his chest.

Hank stood still, watching. He approached, and his father kicked out, narrowly missing his shins.

"You...little...bastard! Call...help! I'm dying!" His voice gasped urgently now, pitifully.

Hank stared, fascinated. In all his years, he had never seen a human die.

He moved to the arm of the chair, just out of reach of his father's arms. Soon, the breath came too infrequently, the air too sparse, for him to speak. He just stared at Hank, eyes both furious and desperate. Even in his pain and horror, he despised his son.

Hank soaked it in.

As the last of the breath whistled out of his father's mouth, he smiled. Something like physical pleasure warmed his body, and he closed his eyes, mesmerized. He had thought about this before, but being in the presence of a dying man, knowing that he could save his life--knowing that he was the gatekeeper of life and death...

He shivered briefly, his heart racing.

He had found power in that moment.

After that, he needed to know what it was like. How it would feel. Something that could talk, and beg, and scream, and die. So he went to the mall, and he waited. He let the men pass, cautiously optimistic that he could eventually take down a full grown male. But not for his first, his trial run.

He watched the women pass, making careful mental note of their habits and their demeanor. They were rarely alone, and that was tough for what he had planned. Besides, he had never much cared for women and you couldn't get as intimate as Hank wanted to get with someone you couldn't respect. He wasn't queer, but he just didn't have the time. Besides, women tended toward herding. They always wanted to be around other people, and that was no good for Hank. He needed alone time.

It left him with no choice, really. He felt a smallish twinge of something resembling regret when he settled on his selection. He even sighed as got in his car and drove home that night with the victim in the trunk.

His inaugural act hadn't been pretty. In fact, it had been sloppy and overdone. Too messy and loud. But over the months, he honed his skills and his technique. He had gotten better at what he enjoyed. For years upon years, he practiced. He broadened his horizons and got bigger, and better. He got a job taking tokens on the expressway. It paid the bills. But it was only his day job. At night, he really went to work.

For decades, he plied his trade. He took scrupulous notes in his journal. The body parts he disposed of haphazardly, knowing he would never be discovered. Knowing that he was too good to be caught.

But one June evening, he had gotten greedy. Three teenagers smoking behind a truck stop. It was a chance meeting, and he seized the opportunity. But he was ignorant of modern technology. He took too many too fast and something called a twitter book or face space page had been updated with a location or a call for help or something. Didn't much matter. One way or another, they had found him before he even got to the second one and they came for him in the night.

It didn't take them long to find the pile in the woods, or his journal and his notes. It shouldn't have. He hadn't hid anything. The pile had been thoroughly picked over by the animals and birds, but it was there, clear as day. Anyone who wanted to admire his work, could. In the end, it was his pride in his work that had landed him in King's Park. It was the trail of his conquests over the years, the proof of his victories past.

Hank vaguely remembered the farce they called a trial. But he remembered the tall, gray haired lawyer; the man whose eyes had dark circles and whose forehead was a testament to cautionary tales against frown lines. He remembered being told to plead insanity. And he remembered scoffing at the thought that he, of all people, didn't know right from wrong.

He knew that power was right and weakness was wrong, but that was a reality he never expected normal, cowardly, small people to recognize. It was a reality that was necessary for people to adopt in order for a "civilized society" to function. There were rules about pain and death; rules designed to keep the powerful in line and the weak alive. But Hank knew those rules to be contrived; he knew human nature differently.

He had copped to the plea eventually, only because he hadn't wanted to die. It was too much to lose, all the experience he had gained in those long years. So for posterity's sake, he admitted to an untruth: that he was insane.

They had sedated him when he came to the Park; but he remembered the talking. He had always yearned for the opportunity to meet the orderlies who did him the injustice of spreading lies about him.

They had dragged him in, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Like chattel.

He lay silently, strapped to a rolling bed, pushed through the hallways like a grocery cart full of meat. They were dressed in white, like brides. There was a big one and a little one. Bullwinkle and Rocky.

The moose had intoned, deeply and stupidly, "You know this guy's story? Fucking crazy as shit."

The wheels squeaked against the floor, eating into his brain as he lay prone on the hard bed. Forced to listen to their conversation.

"Nope. Try to tune out most of these whack jobs. Why?" The squirrel lilted the end of his sentence up, like a retarded leprechaun. God how Hank wanted to be free of his restraints.

The moose whistled, for effect.

"When they busted him and dragged him to the station, he asked for his phone call, sane as you or me. Walks to the pay phone, plunks a quarter in the slot, and calls his house. Stands there, lets it ring, then, when the coin drops down, he plugs it in again and calls back. Stood there for 5 minutes, lettin' it ring. They had to cut him off and call him a lawyer themselves."

"What's so crazy about that?" the squirrel asks. The bed turned a corner. It careened hard into a protruding edge and Hank bit his tongue, drawing blood.

The chipmunk laughed.

"Fucker lived alone, with the desiccated corpse of his old man. Guy had been dead for years. Cops think he killed him when he was 15 or 16."

The rodent was incredulous.

"What? No way, man. You telling me that this guy lived for 40 years with his dad's corpse in the house, dryin' up like a prune in the living room? No way." He was chirping in his little voice, laughing at Hank.

"Just what I heard, man. Just what I heard."

They had drifted off then, speaking of actors and murders and other inane matters. They left him soon after. Left him to think and to meditate. To reflect on his past and glory in his success.

He was locked in a room with no distractions. His bed, white and boring, sat on old linoleum and tile floors. Stains from years of use stared up into his eyes. He sat on the edge of his bed, nearly every day, staring down. Waiting. Hoping.

Occasionally, they would come for him. They would feed him and walk him, like a dog. They would sedate him when he became active. They would shave him. But he never stopped thinking. Never stopped remembering what he was. Or what he could be again, if he just waited.

Days, months, maybe even years went by. The monotony might have driven the average man insane. But Hank was strong. And he had purpose. And his waiting paid off, as he knew it would.

One day, Rocky didn't show up with breakfast. No meal slid through the door. Instead, the sounds of people scurrying frantically about. Noises and voices rose, making their way through the door to Hank's room. Rocky's shrill, nasal voice was the loudest.

"...telling you, man, this is fucking real! ... the coverage ... this morning. People are dying...streets! Some crazy bastard bit George on ... this morning...not gonna be me!"

Agitation and fear was in that voice. Hank closed his eyes and wallowed in it. It had been too long. Vaguely he wondered if Bullwinkle's name was George.

God he hoped so.

"I'm not staying here, I'll tell you ... wife and kids at home ... screw these crazy..."

Footsteps faded down the hall.

"...we can't just leave them here to die! They're our responsibility!"

Outside, a slender man with dark hair in a white coat stood alone, screaming after the fleeing orderly. Hank had never seen him before. He looked around, slowly scanning each door.

Hank stood, face close to the chicken wire and glass window in the doorway. His breath fogged the small opening.

The man drew in a deep breath, seeming to make up his mind about something. Then he walked quickly down the hall and away from Hank.

Hank stayed at the door, hoping for carnage or blood. Voices were distressed. People were worried. He could almost taste the fear. It was wonderful.

Minutes wound by, slowly. Painfully. He listened for voices, but muffled sounds were all that filtered in to him.

But he was patient.

And again he was rewarded.

He felt, rather than heard, the faint metallic click that was his redemption. Beneath his hand, which rested on the door's latch, the lock had been remotely disengaged.

His eyes closed as he took a deep, slow breath. He took in the smell and the feel of the moment, his mind remembering his lessons and playing out his intent.

He pushed the latch down, standing still and smiling. Reaching his hand up to the stitched patch on his chest, he tore deliberately until it came free. Hank threw the torn fragment of cloth to the ground, noticing as he did that it landed face down, with his carefully stenciled name against the dirty floor. Perfect, he thought.

New life, new time. No room for the old me. No name suits me just fine.

Opening the door, he took a step and walked free.

The Subway Passenger

If there was ever a day, in the damn history of the Washington DC subway, that the trains ran on schedule, or there wasn't a track outage, or a squirrel didn't short circuit the whole line, or some other stupid reason that the train didn't come on time, Roy would love to know.

Because as far as he was concerned, they never worked. They were never on time. And he was always, always a victim of other peoples' incompetence.

He glanced up to the board again. The annoyingly bright red lettering told the whole tale--a tale that repeated itself over, and over, and over again--trains on the Red line would be late again, due to a track malfunction further down the line.

He sighed heavily, plopping his small frame unceremoniously on the stone bench. He squeezed in between the arm rest and a frighteningly made up teenager with jet black hair and rings in every limb and protrusion. She glared at him sullenly, eyes heavily lidded. Probably doped up, he thought.

Dipping his hand into his leather satchel, he retrieved his iPod and his folder of case notes. He glanced at his watch, noting that he still had 8 minutes until the next train. People were still wandering in, and the platform wasn't full, meaning that he had time to sit before getting up and jockeying for a position in front. A young pregnant woman walked by slowly, making eye contact with Roy for several seconds before scanning the rest of the bench. No one got up.

With his iPod headphones firmly implanted, he slipped his eyes back to his papers, not oblivious to his rudeness, but completely uncaring. He browsed through several of the papers, making small mental notes and jotting down some ideas as he flipped.

The woman next to him glanced over periodically, her face never losing the seemingly permanent frown of anti-establishment disapproval. He met her glare and widened his eyes and shrugged his shoulders with exaggerated movements, mouthing "what the fuck" as he did so. Surprisingly, she turned away quickly, unwilling to engage.

Wuss, he thought. Everyone puts up a front these days, but no one wants to play.

A flicker of movement caught his eye on the peripherals of his vision and he turned, vaguely curious. People still filtered in slowly from the long escalator, milling unthinkingly as they stared at the same red words on the same black board. 4 minutes left until the train.

Near a small billboard advertising a local bank, a tall, apparently homeless man was leaning against a wall. Not an unusual sight in DC, but still a bothersome one. Many homeless in the District had mental problems, and some had a penchant for confrontation. He had once been pushed into a wall by some freak in a red jumpsuit yelling about Martians. Now he watched them all very closely. He wasn't about to get punked again by a man who wore a pair of ladies panties for a hat and condoms for shoes.

Roy turned the volume on his iPod down slightly, listening as the dirty, crazy-bearded man muttered under his breath. He began slapping his own head suddenly and violently, both hands pummeling his temples. Roy stood up, concerned. He wanted to be ready to run if he had to.

From the speakers overhead, the arrival of the train was announced. The small lights embedded in the concrete on the edge of the platform began to blink. Deep in the tunnel, two small electric eyes glowed as they approached. Not a moment too soon, he thought.

He moved quickly toward the edge, one eye on the man at all times. The disheveled man squatted against the wall, arms still moving. The muttering stopped suddenly, and he sat down hard on the ground, seeming to go to sleep or, more likely, fall unconscious. Roy guessed he was drunk, on top of crazy.

One arm flopped down, revealing a festering sore on the forearm, where the fabric of his shirt was torn. Roy grimaced, imaging the diseases that the man must be carrying and remembering with relief the sanitizer he had in his bag.

The dingy gray train emerged from the tunnel, a massive blast of air preceding it into the station. What was left of Roy's hair fluttered in the breeze and then settled back to his balding head. He moved quickly to the front, pushing several people slightly to obtain the position. He ignored their glares as he stood silently, waiting for the doors to open.

From the platform above, where the passengers were still entering the station, he heard raised voices over his music. Shouting could be heard fairly clearly over the background noise on the platform.

Before he could press the pause button, the doors opened. Stale, warm air released from the carriage and a press of bodies rushed out. He dodged between two men in business suits and bolted for the nearest chair, in the very rear of the car against the glass windows.

He grabbed the headphones out of his ears to listen again for the voices, but the car had filled with people, and the doors were closing. Roy shrugged, physically and mentally, and retrieved his papers from his bag.

The train picked up speed quickly, rushing into the pitch black tunnel with a whistle of air. The people in the car swayed rhythmically with the rocking of the carriage, some reading, some talking. Most staring silently ahead. One man, dressed in a fleece jacket and cargo pants, spoke animatedly with his wife on his cell phone, seeming to try to calm her down. While he read, he listened to the conversation half-interested.

"Look honey, I'm sure it's nothing..." he said, before being interrupted from the other side.

"No, I'm sure the guy didn't have Hepatitis or anything...How do I know?" He rolled his eyes, staring at the ceiling as he spoke. He held the phone away from his face slightly, as if the person on the other end were yelling.

"Because I'm fairly sure not many people walking around the Falls Church Whole Foods have Hepatitis."

Pause. Eyes rolling again.

"Yes, even the ones that go around biting people."

Roy chuckled to himself softly, realizing that the man's wife had been bitten by another person. The shit you hear on the subway, he thought to himself. People are crazy.

The train slowed, and the riders all swayed slowly forward before being jerked back as it came to a halt. As they emerged from the tunnel, Roy noticed how full the station seemed. Usually, this stop wasn't so busy.

People were moving quickly toward the doors, several of them looking over their shoulders frequently as if pursued. No one in the train seemed to notice; several prepared to get off, staring unconcernedly at the closed doors.

The disembodied voice of the conductor crackled intelligibly over the intercom, announcing the station as the doors slid open, and the noise from the platform invaded the carriage.

People flooded in, quickly and loudly. Voices were raised, and several people looked outright frightened. From the rear of the massed people on the platform, a scream suddenly tore into the air. Those closest to the train started pushing, jamming the people in front of them on board. The lights blinked, signaling the doors would be closing.

Several men, recognizing that they wouldn't make it to the train, turned quickly and actually ran toward the escalators. Roy pressed his face against the glass as the doors slid shut, searching for the origin of the scream. People were running now, sprinting for the exits. Several had fallen to the ground and lay prone on the cold cement. Others, seeming to be covered in dirt, knelt down next to them, appearing to be tending to their wounds. He could see their bloodied hands moving quickly over the growing spots of blood on the victims' clothing. Roy cursed, wondering if it was a terrorist attack of some sort.

Several more screamed in quick succession, and the sound of heavy footballs echoed in the underground chamber. Roy fleetingly thought of calling 911, but realized how many people were here. Someone else would use their minutes to call.

The train started moving, and the voices inside reached a crescendo. A woman's voice rose over the commotion, pointing out what they all should have noticed.

"Those people, I think they're hurting the ones on the ground!" Her voice rose to a terrified crescendo at the end, lilting up with fear.

Roy's head whipped to the side as the train sped up. The words on the advertisements plastered against the tunnel walls became a blur as they raced out of the cave, but as he searched for proof of her statement, and his eyes locked once, quickly, with one of those bent over the helpless few.

His eyes met nothing. Blank, white, unfeeling nothing. A face covered in blood. Hands searching the body below it. But not rendering aid. Pulling flesh away, opening new wounds.

He closed his eyes, disbelieving and shocked. He opened them again to the dark passage of the train through the tunnel. Trying to stand, he realized his legs were wobbly and weak. A large hispanic man standing near the door and wearing a dress military uniform raised his voice.

"Does anyone know how busy the next station usually is?" he asked, and Roy knew why he wanted to know. If people were attacking the subway system, they would go for the highest population first.

"At this time of night it's usually dead," said the woman who had been sitting next to Roy at the station, demeanor entirely changed by circumstances.

"Good. Listen, we need to get off the train and back topside. If people are attacking the trains, we need to get out of these things. They're sitting ducks, and we've only got one exit." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the doors.

Many people nodded, agreeing silently. No one spoke, immobilized by fear. Roy wasn't so sure. He didn't think it was such a bang-happy idea to get out of the nice metal tubes and into the large stone caves. He preferred sticking it out until they emerged top side.

He looked around, taking in his fellow passengers. Two women seated in front of him held their heads close, talking quietly, worriedly. The military man who had spoken was tracing the metro map with his finger, finding the next stop in the line. A small teenager in baggy pants and a flannel shirt sat sullenly on the bench seat, music so loud that it could be heard from Roy's seat.

The train lurched, suddenly. From somewhere distant, over the din of the tracks and the hushed voices of those packed around him, Roy heard breaking glass. And screams. The lights flickered, so quickly that he might not have noticed in better times. But in this time, in this place, with murderous loons stalking subway stations, he noticed.

As they rounded a corner, the train lurched again. It sped up slightly as the intercom crackled fitfully. From the other side of the ages-old electronics, a voice was raised and indecipherable. The pitch of the sound indicated that something was wrong. Then, something that sounded like a scream and a cry, then silence.

The military man cursed, grabbing a plastic handle and slamming his hand against the wall of the train. A woman began to cry.

Then the train started to slow.

Roy looked at the map. They were approaching the next to last stop. It was usually a busy station. Hundreds of people, even on a down day. The tunnel walls grew almost imperceptibly lighter as they approached the station. But although they were moving slower, they were not stopping. The train moved gradually as it emerged from the tunnel, at a speed that allowed them an almost theme park-ride view of the chaos that existed below the streets.

People ran and they shuffled; blood was everywhere. Streaked on the ground, pooled in the corners. Escalators bore strips of flesh and gore between the teeth of the metal steps. A billboard, backlit against a fluorescent bulb, advertised a deodorant brand popular with teen girls. A bloody handprint was pressed against the young model's face.

Two young women were running for the elevator, normally used only by the handicapped. But the escalators were packed with carnage and people were fighting for their lives at the exits. So the women were taking the only exit that they could see. The first one there slammed her palm into the button, opening the doors. They rushed in, and almost made it. But their pursuers--a large man in tourist attire, complete with dark socks in sandals and a camera around his neck, and an even larger woman in an overtaxed sun dress--got there too soon. As the elevator doors closed, the man's hand reached inside. The doors met the obstruction, and opened again. The attackers shuffled into the glass-sided room as the doors closed behind them. Roy watched in horror as they tore into the women, hands strong and sure. Blood sprayed against the walls and hid the carnage as the elevator ascended.

Suits, shorts, tee shirts and dresses; lawyers, doctors, janitors and bureaucrats. Everyone in DC used the subways. And it appeared that they were all here today, dying.

The train moved slowly, but quickly enough to protect them from the attempts to enter. The survivors and the slow-moving attackers alike tried to board. A gruesomely disfigured man, missing half of his left arm and covered in white and gray gore, shambled to toward the train, reaching his remaining arm for the moving target.

His hand caught the edge of a window and grabbed hold, tearing his arm from its socket as the train barreled forward, dark, lumpy blood splattering against the window. Without a sound, he turned and shuffled away, unconcerned with the damage rent by the attempt. Looking for another victim.

Roy was transfixed and horrified. He had never seen real violence up close. He listened to the sounds of women crying and men cursing inside the train. He smelled the pungent odor of vomit. And he stood, helpless and speechless, as they moved through a hell of surreal proportions.

After what seemed like years, the train passed into the tunnel ahead. The car shifted speed again, accelerating abruptly as the lights flickered again. From closer than it had before, the sound of glass breaking could be heard clearly in their carriage, as if the window in the next car had shattered.

Roy stood up, making his way to the subway map on the wall. Through the faded, cracked plastic, he traced their pathway. His memory served well. The next stop was Metro Center. It was going to be packed with people. Thousands of people.

"This ain't gonna be pretty, man." It was the uniformed military man from before. He was staring out the dark window as the tunnel lights flashed by.

"What?" Roy was surprised he had spoken; no one ever talked to one another on the subway. But he supposed today was different. Behind him, someone sobbed. Another scream from someone in the next car, closer this time. The noise from the tunnels was loud; a window in his carriage must have been broken.

"That shit wasn't normal, you know?" He was still staring, lost in thought.

"I'm sorry, but what about any of that could have possibly been considered normal?"

"I seen people kill, and I seen people die. None of those people were doing it right. This ain't terrorism. It's an act of God."

Roy guffawed loudly, making clear his position on outdated belief systems.

"So you've seen people kill people before, but how can you say this is God's work just by watching a bunch of crazed lunatics go berserk? Who made you the authority?"

Still staring, he said "It's not the killing that they're doing wrong."

Roy grabbed a handle as the train lurched again, moving faster still. The lights flickered, staying dark for several seconds before sputtering to life again.

"So what is it? What were they doing wrong?" he asked, as the train took a corner too quickly.

"The dying." His eyes shifted to Roy for the first time, empty of feeling.

Suddenly the air brakes kicked in, and the train began to slow. From the front of the cabin, people were muttering loudly. A woman screamed in terror. A man's voice rose. Feet started to pound against the floor as people moved away from the windows.

The train was slowing drastically and Roy could see light outside the windows. The platform slowly crept into view, as the train -- apparently on some sort of safety mechanism \-- drifted to a stop. He stepped back involuntarily, pressing himself against a crush of bodies behind him. His eyes widened in horror. The lights flickered again.

Outside the train, Metro Center was quiet. No one ran or screamed. No one cried.

Hundreds of people were milling around on the platform, aimlessly. Until the train came into the station. They had turned, then. Almost in unison. Toward the train.

As one, they moved toward the carriage. Slowly, dragging feet that seemed too heavy for the bodies. Dragging limbs that didn't flex with the grace of the living. Dead eyes staring straight ahead. Straight at the train. Straight at Roy.

He shivered now, uncontrollably, as they reached the windows. Hundreds of hands slapped against the glass, almost in unison. Hundreds of bloody fingers pushed against the glass, hundreds of mouths and thousands of teeth trying to get through the obstruction.

From outside the cabin, a low moan, hundreds of voices strong, echoed in the cavernous space of the giant subway station. A shrill scream erupted from somewhere behind him and he heard a splashing sound that Roy was certain to be urine escaping a terrified bladder.

Still on autopilot, the train betrayed them all.

In an absurd mockery of safety precautions, the lights flashed once more, blinking with intent rather than happenstance.

Once, twice, three times.

Then, a shrill beep.

Behind him, Roy heard a passenger moan.

Another exclaimed silently, "Mother fucker." Almost a whisper.

Short, but it said it all.

The faces stared into the carriage, blood covering the mouths and hands. The windows were a blur of crimson fluid and streaks of other carrion. White eyes stared forward, hungrily. The hands beat an eerie, deep throated cadence against the tin and glass of the train's now thin-seeming skin.

Slowly, steadily they asked for entrance.

The shrill beep ended. Suddenly, the bright fluorescent lights went out, replaced almost instantly by the dull, muted emergency lights.

A computerized voice came clearly over the intercom.

"Please exit the train. We are experiencing mechanical difficulties. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Roy started to cry.

He had been riding the subway for years.

He knew what came next.

He sobbed once and fell to the floor with his eyes closed as the doors to the train slid open.

And the new passengers came aboard.

The Sniper

The gray, bloody body fell to the concrete of Constitution Avenue, the arms splayed awkwardly across the double yellow lines in the center of the quiet road.

Trees swayed in the breeze, leaves rustling in counterpoint to the distant blaring of an alarm. Light reflected from her perch on high as, fifty feet further down the great boulevard, another body fell against an old dirty sedan. The glass cracked as the alarm sounded. Weakly and with diminishing volume, it cried into the empty, dead air of the afternoon. Soon, the battery would die, and the alarm would stop. For now, it simply called more of them to the noise.

Crack.

Silence.

Pause.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Crack.

Silence.

Pause.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Crack.

She peeled her face back from the scope and rubbed her eyes, allowing the rifle to rest against the wall of the roof, muzzle pointed to the sky. A thin tendril of smoke rose up, blown away quickly by a sudden breeze. She coughed, throat dry and scratchy from lack of water. Her dirty hands left faint streaks of dirt and gunpowder on her tan cheeks. Beneath her sunglasses, she bore the grime of three days' work.

The late afternoon sun retained much of its mid-day heat, and beads of sweat made their way down her neck, under her light green tank top, and down her spine. Resting her left hand on the stone wall next to a scratched and well worn older model cell phone, she raised her right to above her sunglasses, slowly scanning the horizon in a three day-old tradition of futility. Her eyes lighted briefly on the vendor's cart across the street.

With a sigh of resigned regret, she stared at the crates of bottled water sitting unattended next to the umbrella-covered stand and moved her gaze along the mall, past the walking dead, past the unbelievable wreckage of a United Airlines 747 spread across the park, searching instead for signs of life.

In the distance, there were many sounds: sirens, explosions, alarms. There were many people. But as far as she could tell, none of them were alive.

Above the distant horizon, a helicopter moved through the sky like a mosquito. It passed over the Potomac and beyond the silhouette of higher buildings in the distance. She knew what was there. She suspected that there were survivors there, of all places. But although she was only miles away, it was as unreachable as the sun.

She sat down heavily against the wall, staring at the door. The damnable, cursed, death sentence of a door. The bullet holes around the lock stared back at her, mocking the desperation of her glare. Scanning her small surroundings, she took in what she knew was there. A massive crate of fifty caliber bullets, her BDU shirt, a flack jacket, a helmet, a pack with two more MRE's, and a cell phone with a nearly dead battery. Secured to the edge of the wall was her pride and joy, the M107 long range fifty cal sniper rifle. Ironically, she knew that she would go hungry long before her gun.

Scrawled meaninglessly below the rifle were row upon row of hash marks, drawn haphazardly on the smooth marble. She cursed under her breath and rose quickly, drawing a Sharpie from her hip pocket and making five more marks. It brought her total up to 67. Shaking her head, she looked out over the national mall and into the nation's capital, knowing that her total was never going to be enough.

In the three days she had been locked in the cupola at the apex of the U.S. Capitol Building, shit had gone from bad to apocalypse. Isolated incidents of violence had escalated to widespread insanity in mere hours, and what had first been a protective and defensive detail had turned into a war of attrition that she knew she was ill equipped to fight. The thought of winning at this point was beyond conceivable.

Infected people wandered en masse through the streets of the city below; across national parks, through national monuments, and over historic avenues. Thousands upon thousands, no real destination and no apparent purpose. They searched endlessly for food. Shuffling feet and stiff limbs, once a common joke about the people who had worked in the building below her, now a reality in a city occupied by the dead.

When her unit deployed, the thought of the rumors being true was laughable. They argued and scoffed in the back of the personnel carrier as they approached the city on the interstate, a long convey of tan trucks moving through an ominously light day of traffic. Their CO had given them the news, and they were issued orders. But they hadn't seen the news. So it wasn't real. It couldn't be. So they ignored the reality until it was impossible to ignore it any more.

She wished for those last hours of ignorance. She wanted a re-do.

"It'll be fine, honey. I'm sure it's nothing. Look, ask Grandma to make the grilled cheese. I'll be home in a few hours, and we'll read a story."

Her daughter, a spunky eight years old, had her own ideas. In the background on the other side of the phone line, her mother had shouted, "I'll make waffles!"

"Mommy said I could have grilled cheese!" she shouted back, making Carrie pull away from the speaker with a grin. The truck bounced against the road as they turned toward the city, almost popping the phone from her hand.

"Can I have Frosted Flakes in my grilled cheese?"

"No, you can most certainly not!"

Her daughter laughed, knowing the answer. Samantha was a joker, and loved to ask silly questions. Carrie's heart melted as she listened to the giggle.

"Tell Grandma I said you could have grilled cheese with some chips, and a cookie. I'll be home after dinner. You can wait up for me if you want, okay?"

"Okay...but I want to read Lady Bug's Parade before bed."

Carrie sighed. They had read the same story for two weeks in a row, every night. But conceding the point was easier than plugging another book.

"No problem kiddo. Put Grandma on the line for a sec, okay? I love you."

"You too mommy. Home soon?"

"Sure sweetie."

The background rustled as Carrie's mom came on the line. The truck turned sharply as Carrie stared out of the back of the truck, watching the next vehicle in line with bored eyes.

"Carrie?"

"Hey mom. Everything okay?"

"Well, yeah, here. But have you seen the news?"

"No, but we're being deployed for some sort of riot or protest of some sort. CO says that people have gone a little crazy in the head, and it appears to be contagious."

Her mom snorted and said, "I'll say. You wouldn't believe what's going on out there! Ms. Henderson down the hall said some idiot came up to her and bit her on the finger! But she was able to run away before anything else happened, thank God."

Mrs. Henderson was somewhere north of 150 years old. Carrie frowned slightly as she tried to imagine her running away from anyone.

"Okay, mom. Just make sure you lock the door and keep Sam inside, okay? I'll be home soon and we can talk."

"You betcha, kiddo. Once your brother gets here, we'll snuggle up real tight, don't you worry."

Carrie rolled her eyes. Her kid brother was a real loser, and always seemed to show up around dinner time.

"Okay, thanks mom. Give Sam a hug for me."

"Take care, hon."

Click.

Over and out.

A single tear, all the moisture her body could spare, dropped to the hot marble beneath her hands. Her fingers flexed convulsively on the lip of the wall, knuckles cracking. Since then, she hadn't been able to get through. The phone lines were down. Her cell was almost dead. So she waited for a call. Or for the battery to die.

Wiping her face quickly, she reached down into her pack for the last bottle. It held no more than a quarter of its original contents. The water was warm and tasted sour. But it was all she had, and she wasn't likely to get more soon. Not since Rick had disappeared into the building with the radio and the key to the double-sided lock. She had never expected that a man that had survived two tours in Baghdad and another in Afghanistan would be taken down easily by such slow moving invalids. But he hadn't returned.

And that had sealed her fate.

So the water wasn't just a beverage. It was another hour or two of life, and she wasn't about to give that up without a fight. Her daughter needed her, so she needed to live.

She sat down again to avoid the blasting sun. As the afternoon faded, she closed her eyes, seeking sleep that she knew wouldn't come. She ignored the nagging of her subconscious; she knew that she would die if she couldn't find water. Soon. But she couldn't change reality. She was trapped on the top of a ten story building, with nothing to break her fall but the ground. If she attempted to get down, and fell, she could break a leg. The only fate worse than death would be at the hands and teeth of those creatures. She had seen their work through the scope of her gun. That wasn't how she'd leave this world.

Her eyes closed, she tried to relax. She tried to imagine Sam at home, safe. She tried to envision a scenario where she would find her way home and her daughter alive. But it was visions of her past that intruded. She had taken lives before, when they were so valuable today. Through the viewfinder on her rifle, she had distanced herself from right and wrong. Death had been her business, and dealing it out her specialty. And it was that business that she had traded for her daughter's time.

She was in Fallujah when Sam turned 6, Kabul at 7. Sam herself was a product of Carrie's time in the Army--a mistaken love affair with a married officer that resulted in a demotion and a barely avoided dishonorable discharge. It was all she had ever known, and even when faced with the prospect of losing time with her new born daughter, or shipping off to war, it was her fear of the unknown--the fear of getting a normal job, of assimilating, of being a full time mom--that pushed her to continue to serve.

And now, it was that fear that had led her here. She hated herself for her cowardice.

Suddenly, from the ledge of the cupola, a shrill ring and a sullen vibration against the granite brought her eyes open and her body upright. She couldn't believe it. Her phone.

She stared at the scratched plastic screen. It wasn't a call, it was a text. From her brother. She punched the keys furiously, opening the screen to the text inbox.

MOMMY?

It was Samantha, using Paul's phone. Shit, she didn't even know Sam could text!

SAM, IT'S MOM. R U OK?

Her fingers shook as she aimed for the right keys.

UNCLE PAUL IS MEAN. HE TRY TO HRT GRAM.

What? Carrie was stunned; Paul must have this disease. Mother fucker, she thought.

R U SAFE NOW?

Her heart beat against her chest.

HE IN KICHEN. JUST WOKE UP

Jesus. He must have passed out and woken as one of those things, she realized.

CAN U GET TO BEDROOM?

Time slowed as she waited to hear if Sam knew to get the room with a lock. She could feel the seconds eek by. Another drop of sweat trickled to the tip of her nose as she stared at the screen. In the corner of the yellow plastic, the battery indicator blinked.

SAM! CAN U GET TO ROOM 2 LOCK DOOR?

Nothing.

Suddenly a chirp as two messages came in nearly simultaneously.

HE IN RM W ME NOW. HURT GRAM.

SCARED MOM.

She caught a sob in her throat. Her fingers worked furiously as her heart raced.

STAY STILL

She hoped and prayed that whatever Paul had become, it wasn't an adept hunter. She stared at the screen. Her sweat trickled down her nose and made small dots of dark gray on the dirty floor. Her hands shook almost uncontrollably. Then, another small vibration as the phone came to life. The battery light blinked once more.

HE C ME. LUV U

She screamed in frustration, fingers going to the keys again. As she was pressing send, she realized with horror that the screen had gone blank. The battery had finally died. She dropped the phone to the floor and struck the cold, unforgiving stone mercilessly as she cried. She continued until her hands bled, and collapsed to the floor, weeping. Her eyes were drawn to the empty water bottle and the sparse food supplies. She stared into the blue, cloudless sky, memories of her daughter flooding her mind. Piercing the quiet, her sobs filled the air.

Suddenly, against the backdrop of despair, a faint and barely perceptible buzz. Plastic against granite. Pause. Then again.

Her shaking hand moved toward the cell phone, eyes wide and haunted as she pressed the faded green button.

"It's okay, mommy. Come home." Her voice was soft, gentle. Beckoning.

"I can't ... you could be alive. I can help you." Anguish wracked her body as she collapsed to the ground. She hugged her arms close against her breast, squeezing tightly. Holding something. Anything.

"No, mommy. This is the way home. This is the way to help me. Leave that place." She missed that voice. She wanted to believe. She wanted to read the Lady Bugs Parade. Just one more time.

"I ... this isn't the way ..." She was weeping, tears refusing to come, no water to give to the process. Her body hurt, her muscles screamed. Her head was pounding.

"I promise mommy. Come home. We can read stories, and I can make you grilled cheese." Then, the final words. The final plea.

"I love you mommy. Please come home to me." Her voice broke, close to tears.

Carrie opened her eyes, staring to the sky. The evening would be beautiful. She could see stars, and a half moon cresting the horizon.

Her hand closed around the pistol at her hip.

Her daughter had been born in September. It had been a night much like this. Quiet and warm. Comforting.

The safety slid down, the well oiled parts offering no resistance.

"Thank you mommy." The voice echoed in the small space, now. The gun was cool in her hand, but heavy and safe. It tasted of steel and grease. But she reveled in the feeling. Any feeling.

She closed her eyes once more and exhaled.

A cool, clear night fell on the U.S. Capitol Building. The heat of the day faded with darkness.

But no one was left alive to notice the beauty of that evening. All was quiet, and alone.

In the cupola of the large building, an old battered cell phone lay undisturbed, its battery having died days ago.

It would remain there for ages. Long after the body in the corner was decayed and gone.

###

