Brooklyn, Wheels and Zombies

The story of a Dutch tourist stuck in New York during the zombie apocalypse was born out of two things. First, the basic idea came to me while watching World War Z. Remember the scenes where the zombies were attacking just about anything and everything but avoided some. It turned out that these people were sick and I thought that might be an interesting turnaround. To witness the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of someone, not on the zombie radar.

Second, I’d never been to the States, so I figured: Tourist. That way I could blame any false assumptions on the fact that my main character wasn’t familiar with general customs and such. I know, I know, this was probably a cheap way to avoid research, but it seems to have worked;)

Check out a preview of Brooklyn, Wheels and Zombies

Part One
Undead Departures

Chapter one

Welcome to America, that’s what the sign on the wall read. The red, white, and blue flag swayed with pride behind a beautiful eagle in full flight. I wanted to be that eagle. I wanted to glide beyond the clouds where my next dinner and the friction of the wind would be the only things to worry about. Unfortunately, my life was not a place for wishes, or hope, for that matter.

Even my hope of getting out of there seemed to be a killer. God, I wanted to get out of there. I’d had enough of dealing with overfriendly, broad-smiling, too-fake hotel employees for too long. All I knew was that this thing had botched my vacation, and I was ready to go home. What did I know? How could I predict my life would never be the same?

I sat in a makeshift airport infirmary with no chance of catching my flight. We had been forced into a two-by-two room after standing in line, waiting for what seemed like hours for the stupid gates to open, when an oversized, freaked-out customs officer took a bite out of my friend, Emily.

The man lunged from out of nowhere, yanked Emily down by the arm, and sank his teeth into her skin. Several soldiers had to haul him off her before they slapped him into cuffs. I stood aghast, unable to believe what had happened until someone pointed at my friend. Blood gushed from Emily’s hand, but the wound didn’t seem that bad. When my levelheadedness returned, I grabbed a towel from my backpack, a last-minute souvenir from the hotel, and wrapped her hand. Emily stared at me with glassy eyes, and then her legs buckled. I managed to catch her before she went down. She seemed to go into shock. The tension at the airport had risen to similar levels as the hotel. This freaked-out customs officer had not softened the mood.

This vacation was supposed to have been a gift from my parents. They’d thought I’d needed time to relax. Although I had wanted to go to Australia, I’d welcomed their offer if only to get away from them. The first day had been okay; we’d seen some of the sights, visited a museum, and eaten at a fine restaurant, but for some reason, without warning, everything had changed. The authorities had forced us to remain at the hotel for the rest of our stay. The military had declared martial law in the city and denied us the ability to leave the premises. Television had disclosed nothing, except for some vague news story about an influenza outbreak. The Internet went from terrorists to rabies with the click of a button.

Ten days stuck in a hotel that served tension for breakfast hadn’t been my idea of a fun holiday, and relief had washed over me when they announced that tourists would be shipped out. That was me, a tourist from a little country called the Netherlands, known abroad as the land of windmills, wooden shoes, and tulips. Oh, and for some, we apparently were drugged-out maniacs who euthanized their parents when they got too old. I just blinked at that.

Before the announcement, we’d watched the scenes outside from the windows. Guests had started to get anxious when armored vehicles had cornered the streets. Soldiers had guarded buses, ushering citizens to get on. So many buses that at one point, I’d stopped counting. They had driven on and off, filled to the brim with locals. However, for all who left, others had remained behind. New Yorkers who hadn’t been shipped off yet had watched the departing buses with the same awe as Emily and I had. Their body language had oozed uneasiness of when they had faced the soldiers, the New Yorkers’ arms flailing or held in front of their bodies, begging for information or ways to get onto the buses.

Could this have been what it had been like after 9/11? What could have spooked New York in any way without it being big on the news? The city had been on lockdown, and it hadn’t taken a genius to recognize something had been very wrong in this place.

Shortly after the announcement, they had packed my friend, Emily, and me onto one of those buses with a bunch of other tourists and had shipped us off to JFK. Officials had canceled arrivals, but departures had boomed with people. It had seemed as if these officials had tried very hard to get rid of us. I hadn’t cared as long as I was going to get to go home.

Although the thought of home had had less appeal to me than it once had. It would have thrown me back into reality. A reality where I probably wouldn’t have been able to go back to my job or anything else that resembled a normal life.

I had lived in and out of hospitals for most of my life but had been doing okay the past couple of years, had even started working for my dad, and although it hadn’t been my dream job, at least it had given me some purpose. No, strike that. I’d hated sitting behind a stupid desk all day, telling others what to do. Unlike my siblings who ran their sister companies exactly how they’d wanted, I’d had the honor of running the electronics department at our company headquarters where my dad could keep an eye on me. Sure, I’d had a high-end job, making deadlines with fifty people counting on me for job security, but compared to my executive brother and sister, I could have been the receptionist. It had been our dad’s way of pointing out that he had been afraid his fragile little girl couldn’t cut it. In the end, it hadn’t mattered; I would never be a part of running that place. I had just hoped that one day I’d be able to run my own life, if I survived beyond the end of this year.

I narrowed my eyes at Emily’s still frame. She had stared at that same point on the floor since they’d placed us in this room. My gaze drifted to the clock on the wall that confirmed it had been about twenty-five minutes.
The tiny room fitted its purpose. A stainless steel cart held some first aid essentials, Emily sat on a gurney, and I had confiscated the single chair in the room. Blinds obscured the view to the departure area that lay one floor down, beneath our feet. The glass had to be thick, given the lack of noise, and it made the room feel isolated. I hoped they hadn’t forgotten about us, because I could have used a cup of coffee. I would wait five more minutes and then go find someone.
Emily, who I had met about ten years ago as an exchange student at Oxford, looked pale. We had clicked from the moment we’d met as freshers as they say in England at the start of the first year. For our home trip, she had dressed casually in comfortable jeans with a white blouse, and she had her blond hair pulled into a ponytail. We had a long flight ahead of us. She sat unmoving and, most curiously, silent.

Emily was the type of girl who would chat until your ears fell off. Born in London, she’d been a chatterbox dictionary for my English vocabulary. We had remained friends after my dad had cut his funding and forced me to drop out. Our friendship had thrived on the progress in technology. It hadn’t hurt Dad was a gadget nerd with more money than was good for him who’d provided us with all the latest tech. Emily and I had even watched old episodes of ER via Skype. The long-distant electronic friendship had served my needs perfectly. I had been able to reach Emily when I’d needed to talk to someone and then flip the switch when she’d gotten on my nerves. She had stuck with me through the miseries of my life, though she probably knew I would never return the favor.

“Em,” I said, “you okay?” She didn’t respond. She cradled her bitten hand in the bloodstained hotel towel. An airport employee had given her something for the pain, but her unresponsiveness made me wonder if that employee might have switched the aspirin for Valium.

The rattling of the air conditioner over my head, troubled with some serious clogging issues, started to drive me nuts. I rubbed a hand over my almost bare scalp. About a millimeter of fuzzy hair remained after my latest round of treatments. It could take months after the end of chemotherapy for hair to start growing, and mine was in no hurry.
I sagged down in the chair. My long legs, dressed in cargo pants, lay stretched out on the floor. I tilted my head to watch the erratic flutter of the white ribbon tied to the vent. Then a thud on the door made me jump.

I sat up to watch the door. The blinds that covered the window swayed in the aftershock. Emily hadn’t reacted at the interruption. I’d just let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and then something that sounded like a scuffle reached our ears from beyond the door. Were those screams? It had to be my imagination. Curious, I stood up to head for the door when I directed my attention to Emily. I placed a hand on her shoulder to shake it.

“Em,” I said. She didn’t move. A loud bang made me jump again, and I turned to the door. I paused when all sorts of wild scenarios crossed my mind. This was America after all. Instead of opening the door, I pushed the blinds to the side.

My eyes widened at the sight. I released the blinds, blinked, and moved them again. The image remained the same. I shook my head; it could be some weird aftereffect from the medication I’d taken, but none of the blinking and head shaking changed what I saw.

The makeshift infirmary was on the first floor down a long hall. Several travel agencies filled the office spaces on one side of it. The other side sported a balcony with an open view of the ground floor plaza. I didn’t know whether plaza was the right English phrase, but that’s what it looked like to me—miles and miles of white stone floors that carried unimaginable amounts of travelers each year. White pillars supported high, rounded ceilings. Rows of check-in desks filled the floor, partitioned off by portable fences to guide passengers into queues.

The image of the plaza trapped my breath as my lungs became unwilling to release it. What had been a sea of people with thoughts of going home who had tried to avoid each other had turned into a sea of people who flew at each other. Instead of queues guarded by military personnel, a heap of bodies ran up, on, and over each other. Chaos had broken out like the riots I had been lucky enough to have only seen on TV. Between the running and stumbling masses, I saw several lifeless figures sprawled across the floor. From the amount of blood that pooled around their bodies, I assumed them dead. The savage images accompanied by the muffled sounds felt surreal. In places, the white stone floor had turned crimson.

A woman looked as if she was screaming in victory after she ripped the ear off a man’s head with her teeth. I swallowed at the sight; what was happening? It made me regret skimming those articles about rabies on the net.

“Em,” I said, my voice tight, “you should come see this.” I stood mesmerized for a minute and watched the scene unfold. Small clusters of soldiers entered the plaza from different sides and opened fire. I winced at the sound of gunfire. The soldiers used an efficient approach by targeting the heads of their victims. They didn’t seem fazed by what they witnessed. People dropped dead without distinction once the soldiers opened fire.

The soldiers became targets themselves when people, most of them in cheerful summer garments, started to fight back. I might have stood in line with some of them a mere half-hour ago. As their aim faltered, soldiers started to fall victim to the onslaught. Bullets tore into the torso of a man wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and ripped out of his back in an explosion of blood. My whole body froze in shock. I kept hoping that someone would yell cut or reset. My heart stopped when the Hawaiian shirt stumbled but didn’t relent. He kept going, barreling forward until a bullet made his brain burst out of the back of his head.

Hands shaking, I remembered to breathe. Distracted by the unfolding scene, I’d almost forgotten about Emily until a deep, eerie moan filled the room. I swallowed as I shifted my head. Emily remained unmoving. Had she made that sound? A white mist swam across her hazel eyes.

“Emmm,” I said, drawing out her name. It took a moment, but then Emily opened her mouth. Her jaw stretched as if she used it for the first time. A loud, guttural growl that sounded more fearsome than that of a grizzly bear exited her mouth. I raised an eyebrow, wondering whether it was possible for a frail human being like Emily to make a sound like that. She lifted her chin, sniffing the air, nostrils flaring before her milky white eyes fell on me. My head spun while my stomach sank.

“Oh, shit,” passed my lips. I shook my head for good measure. Come on, this was not happening. Had she contracted this rabies thing? With a jerky motion, Emily shuffled from the gurney. Her high-heeled boots hit the linoleum with a tap. I pressed into the door, unsure of what to do. My eyes flew over the rest of the room. Emily snapped her jaw opened and closed as her hand reached out to me.

“Em,” I said in an effort to get through to her. Then I shouted her name, but she didn’t react. In a panic, I grabbed the stainless steel cart and pulled it between us. Something was very wrong here.

Gunshots on the other side of the door reminded me it wasn’t just in here. Emily, unimpressed by the cart, shuffled toward me. Her weight pressed against the cart, but she didn’t seem as crazy as the people below. A bloodied hand reached for my face. Heart pounding, I forced myself to unfreeze, pushed the cart backward, and kicked it. The momentum sent Emily toppling over the gurney to the other side.

I glanced through the window. The hall behind the door seemed clear. Confusion roared in my mind when Emily groaned again. She struggled to make her way around the gurney. I shoved it, pinning her to the wall. As I strained to keep the gurney in place—and, with it, Emily—I reached for my backpack. My gaze shifted, unwillingly to see my best friend snap her teeth. Her milky eyes gazing at the door. They seemed soulless, as if nobody was home. Without any idea of what I was doing, I swung the backpack over my shoulder. Emily tumbled to the floor when I let go of the gurney. I opened the door behind me, stepped out, and closed it shut.

The walkway was empty except for the carnage happening one floor beneath my feet. Desks with computers on top of them filled the adjacent rooms. Pictures of exotic places covered the walls. Noses stuck to the glass that looked over the plaza. Terrified eyes that represented how I felt filled the faces of the few office workers brave enough to watch.

Pulled toward it like a magnet, I stepped closer and held onto the railing for support. My eyes whisked across the ground floor, unable to focus on a single spot, as if viewing an Escher painting. Human teeth sank into the flesh of other human beings. Skin ripped and tore, revealing the blood and tissue underneath.

A soldier’s rifle clicked empty. Overcome by fear, he threw it at an unimpressed child, a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The child’s skull jerked when the rifle connected. Blood ruptured from the cut on the boy’s head, but he didn’t stay down. The soldier fumbled for his sidearm. He pointed it at the kid, who came snarling at him. The muzzle of the gun flared as the soldier tripped and crashed to the floor. I opened my mouth to scream. Go for the head, I wanted to tell him, as the soldiers had done when they first came in, but fear must have overtaken this soldier, and I knew my voice would never reach him. The kid remained unaffected while his shirt grew bright red. He threw himself on top of the soldier. I closed my eyes at the soundless scream that showed on his face.

I had seen zombie movies, even read the books where they called the damn things everything except what they were. Those things beyond the railing beneath my feet acted like actual, proper zombies. Oh God, Emily, she had become one of them. I closed my eyes, wishing I was wrong, that this wasn’t real, that something had gone wrong with my medication. Because if this was real, I would have lost the only friend I’d ever had.

“Hey,” a voice yelled. Wishing I’d wake up from the permanent imprint of a horror movie scratched onto my brain with nine-inch nails, I ignored the voice.
When someone shook my shoulders, I looked up, blinked to shift focus, and saw a man in military gear. His gray-blue eyes blazed, filled with adrenaline, while his helmet hung low over his forehead. His jaw was tightly set.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” he said. Stupefied, I contemplated him for a second.

“Okay,” I said, incredulous, as I fought to find the right words. English wasn’t my first language, but it had become a solid second. Still, I had trouble voicing my thoughts, as if the scenes unfolding in front of my eyes had fried my brain. “Did … did you see …?” I stumbled over the words. Incomprehensible sentences followed. I sounded like an idiot, and I caught the soldier’s glare. I sucked in a breath to gather my thoughts. When I opened my mouth to speak, something crashed behind me. The soldier looked up, startled.

“What was that?” he said. He raised the assault rifle that hung on his chest.

“Oh, that’s my friend, Emily,” I said, dazed, “but she’s not that friendly anymore.”

The soldier narrowed his gaze, looked me over, and then looked straight into my eyes. I was glad I had found my voice. Then another louder crash followed, this time from the plaza. The soldier swung around, weapon raised.

A car had rammed a glass wall. It had hit several people before it crashed into a row of airline desks. A woman lay flattened underneath a front tire. Instead of being dead, her arms flailed at anything that passed by. It shocked me out of my daze. The soldier waved at another soldier nearby and pointed at the offices where people still were glued with their noses to the windows. He made some gestures with his hands that I didn’t understand, and then he turned his focus back to me. From the corner of my eye, I saw three soldiers rush down the hall. They started entering the offices and ushering the remaining people out.

“You don’t seem hurt,” said the soldier near me. I shook my head, my eyes on the crowd exiting the offices. They looked in shock as they scrambled along the hallway, flanked by soldiers. Shouldn’t I follow them? Before I could voice the thought, the soldier grabbed my arm and pulled me alongside him. He said, “Follow me.”

My legs started to move as if they had a mind of their own. I looked over my shoulder at the door where I’d left Emily. A gut-wrenching feeling threatened to take me over. Aware of the threatening screams and rapid gunfire, I managed to push it down. I said a silent good-bye to my old friend and decided to mourn her another time, if I survived. In the same glance, I noticed the soldiers usher the office people in the opposite direction.

“They’re going … where … should we?” I asked. Nerves got the better of me, which made me rattle out the words in the wrong order. The soldier raised an eyebrow. I took a breath and said, “Shouldn’t we follow?” With a faint smile, he nodded that he understood.

“One of my men is held up down this way, and you’re sticking with me,” he said with a grin. “By the way, my name’s Captain Justin Decker. Call me Justin. I saw you standing there and thought you might need a hand.”

“I’m Margje Vissers.”

“Does the name come with the accent?” he said with a frown.

“I know. It’s Dutch. Can’t help it.” He grinned as he pulled me down another corridor. “Call me Mags. It’s what my friend, Emily, used to call me.”

Chapter two

“All right, Mags,” Justin said. The tortured screams faded into the background as he led us from the plaza. White walls replaced the balcony. Blue carpet spread across the floor while window-framed office spaces lined the halls.

Justin kept a firm grip on my arm as he dragged me along. I felt grateful for his momentum and guidance, afraid to pull my eyes from the blue carpet.

Someone cried out. Reluctantly, I looked up from the carpet. An escalator became visible, its black belt moving undisturbed. Justin slowed us down to a walk while he lifted his weapon to his chin. My breathing reached near-hyperventilation levels. Although the presence of zombies would easily accomplish heavy breathing on its own, my shitty physical condition didn’t help. I could barely hear the bone-cutting wails over my thundering heart. I stayed behind Justin with a hand on a wall to steady myself while he stalked forward. As the black belt spun, every step of the revolving stairs that disappeared into the floor increased my heart rate by a thousand, waiting for whatever it was that was making its way up the stairs.

The head of a young man popped up on the moving stairs. The escalator forced him onto our floor where it pushed his body into a bizarre position. The man struggled with his limbs and then stumbled to his feet. His nose lifted into the air like an animal on the hunt. His head jerked our way in the blink of an eye. Blood caked his shirt and jeans, probably caused by the nasty gash along his neckline. His eyes looked as vacant as Emily’s had while his head twitched as if he had Parkinson’s disease. Although my stomach turned at the sight, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. With jerky movements, the man made his way to us. Running seemed a good choice at that moment.

Justin had a different idea and fired his weapon twice. The man’s head snapped to the side. My eyes closed before he could hit the floor. Then I felt a tug on my arm. Willingly, I followed Justin’s lead. Why did I do that? I was never big on trusting people, hence the fact that Emily had been my only friend. Why was I following this man, and why hadn’t I joined the others?

Justin pulled me to a closed door. Through the window, I saw people sitting on the floor of the small office space. He opened the door and ushered me in. A second soldier sat hunched down in the corner in front of a metal desk. Although crouched, I could tell he was tall and lanky. He got to his feet, removed his helmet, and placed it on the desk. Short, frizzy hair covered his head. As he caught my gaze, I couldn’t help being captivated by his pale, jade eyes, which I’d never seen on a darker-skinned person before, except on television. Unlike the adrenaline-pumped gray-blue eyes of the captain, his eyes looked calm and soothing. Still panting from running with Justin, I closed my mouth. He cocked his head, his gaze filled with curiosity.

Justin raised his hands in question as if he hadn’t expected the company. The soldier shrugged with an incredulous shake of his head. I don’t think he had expected the company either.
“What’s it like out there, Cap?” he said when Justin closed the door behind me.

“The world’s gone crazy, Lieutenant. Are we still in control?” Justin pointed at a wall, with a gesture for me to sit on the floor, and he asked for a status update. I chanced another glance at the lieutenant. His strong jaw sported a five o’clock shadow, and with his thought-provoking eyes, the man looked gorgeous. He started rattling off military slang that derailed my attention from the conversation. I didn’t collapse onto the ground, but I wasn’t far from it. I eased my head between my knees and focused on my breathing.

When I regained my breath, I noticed two women huddled in the corner. One of them was crying. British flags decorated their flight attendants uniforms. The way they held on to each other told me they worked the same planes. The tall blonde sobbed inconsolably while the slim brunette held her arms around the crying woman. A man sat shaking his head as if he couldn’t fathom what was happening. I could understand that; I should have been on a plane bound for Amsterdam. Instead, things that appeared to have stepped out of a horror movie chased me around the airport. The man buried his elderly face in his hands, his white hair still shaking in disbelief. He too wore a uniform, except his was a janitor’s.

The lieutenant moved next to Justin, and they both peeked out the window.

“The plane made a clean exit and should land in Florida within three hours. Command ordered us to retreat to the safe zones with the rest of the troops,” the lieutenant said. “After that we lost communications.” He continued to explain that the two flight attendants and the old man had followed him. They had refused to leave. The lieutenant also mentioned something about an aborted shipment of subjects but didn’t clarify.

“Is she a carri—” the lieutenant started to say and nodded my way. When he saw I noticed, he didn’t finish his sentence. Is she what? I was straining my ears to hear his whispered voice when Justin answered.

“Don’t know, but she looks it.”

Aggravated, I wanted to speak up. They were talking about me as if I weren’t in the room, just as my dad would do. But I lacked the courage. Besides, I shouldn’t aggravate the men who might keep me from certain slaughter by zombies. Not that it mattered; I’d leave this planet soon enough. But I wouldn’t tell them that. On the other hand, most people could read it on my face, or the short, fuzzy hair would betray me.

I couldn’t help staring at the two men when they shifted and slid down to the floor. In full battle gear, they looked ready to charge a castle. Assault rifles hung across their chests over some type of body armor. They looked prepared. It made me wonder how much they knew, venturing in here, and not just about shooting zombies in the head. Despite his adrenaline-filled eyes, Justin oozed control as if he did things like this every day of his life. I caught the lieutenant staring at me again. He nervously diverted his gaze when I faced him. I didn’t know whether to frown or smile at him.

Justin’s gaze swept the room. I could picture him addressing troops. He radiated a sense of command.
“All right, people, listen up,” he said as he pushed his helmet up his head. Besides me, no one acknowledged him. These weren’t the type of people he usually dealt with. The flight attendants stayed huddled, and the old man kept his face hidden in his hands, except he wasn’t shaking his head anymore. Justin frowned and glanced at his lieutenant before he propped himself up and then cleared his throat.

“Listen to me,” he said with that authoritative voice you would expect from a captain. Both women shot to attention. Justin started to talk while my eyes settled on the old man. Although he wasn’t staring at the ground, he did seem to be staring at his hands. The captain’s call for attention hadn’t startled him. It gave me this strange déjà vu sensation that reminded me of Emily.
“All right, an infection has spread around this airport. It makes the infected act violent. We have safe zones we can go to, but we need to get moving.”
Justin took in a breath. Before he could say anything else, I felt my mouth move.

“They’re zombies,” I said without taking my eyes of the old man, “the living dead.”

All eyes, except for the old man’s, turned to me. I sounded crazy without a doubt, but I couldn’t find another word for what was happening.

Justin raised an eyebrow as he said, “Ma’am, I know it’s a lot to take in, but this is no time to break down.” Before he could open his mouth again, the lieutenant interrupted him.

“Eh, Captain,” the lieutenant said as he gestured to the window behind them, “I know it’s an infection, but calling them zombies suits me just fine.” Justin raised his head in annoyance.

“Now, you listen, Lieu…” his voice trailed off at the sight of the figure on the other side of the glass.

I gasped at the young woman. Her jacket hung open revealing a once-white blouse, ripped and covered in blood. One of her breasts hung out, missing a big chunk of flesh. Thick, dark blood oozed from her neck where the skin had ripped. She raised her hands and started banging on the glass. Eyes as though they had been stored in ethanol stared at us. Blood smeared the window, which bestowed on the woman an ominous red sheen. Justin withdrew his gaze, swallowing a big lump.

My focus fell on the old man, who had released his hands from his face. Some blood trickled down his wrist. I looked up at the woman standing by the window, switched to Justin, then back to the old man, and started to press myself up the wall. I had an eerie feeling this all was about to get very screwy. The old man’s head flung at me. I froze on the spot. He had the same milky white eyes as Emily and the woman banging on the window. He snapped his teeth as if he were challenging me. His nose sniffed the air like a wild dog, and then he shook his head.
Overclouded eyes drifted past me and landed on the two flight attendants. The old man fumbled with his limbs as if he had to figure out how they worked. His body jerked as he scrambled his way across the floor on all fours. He went straight by me and threw himself at the women. The blonde squealed when he sunk his teeth into her. She kicked and screamed, but the old man struck her like a hyena.

The lieutenant tackled the old man. He was quick to pull him off the blonde, but it was too late. Her mouth fell open to suck in a breath that would never find her lungs. I could see the despair in her eyes, the reality that it was over hitting, fused with an unwillingness to let go. I had seen it before.

Justin just stood there, staring at me. Taken aback, I returned his gaze. Had he noticed how the old man went straight by me? A moment passed as the blonde’s bright blue eyes fogged over. Her struggle stopped with a whimper.

“Out. Now,” Justin commanded. His voice boomed in the small office space. In a motion derived more out of muscle memory than bravery, I grabbed the arm of the remaining flight attendant and pulled her to the door.

The lieutenant had the old man pinned down with an office chair. The old man’s arms flailed, and his teeth snapped at the air. The lieutenant’s voice remained steady when he said, “Captain, we won’t have backup.” He kept his weight firmly on the chair.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Justin said. Huddled by the door, Justin looked me over before he turned to the remaining flight attendant.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he placed an arm on her shoulder. I involuntarily raised my eyebrows at that. Why couldn’t I get an ‘Are you okay?’ My face straightened at a hollow moan that did not come from underneath an office chair.

“Still think I’m breaking down,” I asked Justin. He glared at me for a second until the lieutenant forced his attention.

“Cap,” he said. Justin followed his lieutenant’s gaze to the corner of the room. He took a quick look out the window.

“Move, now,” he said. He opened the door just as the tall blonde behind me stood. I pushed the flight attendant out the door and followed, the lieutenant behind me. He closed it seconds before a loud thud followed from the other side. In the hall, Justin had kicked the woman with the breast hanging out who had been standing at the window. She lay sprawled on her back, clawing her arms and legs in the air. Two shots turned her face into a bloody mess.

We followed Justin along the hallways of doors, windows, and blue carpet. The lieutenant held his rifle at the ready as he made up the rear. Every time he pulled the trigger, I jumped, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking. He too seemed to know the head was the best way to dispose of zombies. Infected airport staff, tourists, and business suits whose lifeless corpses flopped to the ground once the lieutenant had them in his sights and pulled the trigger. We stopped at a door marked with an emergency exit sign. Justin opened it a crack, and the landing looked clear. We all filed through behind him.

The soldiers checked the stairs going up and down. I crawled into a corner to catch my breath. My pulse raced and my legs burned as if acid had replaced the blood in my veins. I was seriously out of shape.

“Stairs clear,” the lieutenant said as he kneeled by my side.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking me over. He kept his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. I felt my cheeks flush red. I knew I shouldn’t have felt embarrassed, but I couldn’t help it. My shitty physique could put them all in danger.

“I’m not in the best shape of my life,” I said and rubbed a self-conscious hand over my fuzzy hair. The gesture generally said enough to avoid explanations beyond that. It worked. The lieutenant nodded with empathy etched across his face, which made me feel even worse.

“So, now what?” I asked to divert the attention from me before the others could join the conversation.

“Good question,” the lieutenant said to his commanding officer.

“We head down and search for a vehicle. There should be a perimeter by now. We’ll hook up with them,” Justin said.

“I’m not going down there,” I said breathily but determined. Both men looked at me in dismay.

“I want to go home,” the slim flight attendant interjected. I could understand that sentiment. The men ignored her, their dubious eyes on me. I cleared my throat. My fear had spoken out of turn, which meant my brain now had to come up with something that didn’t sound too much cowardly.

“There’s too many of them; we have to put as much distance between them and us as we can,” I said. “That is a freaking departure hall down there. We’ll be overrun in seconds.”
Justin narrowed his eyes at me, but the lieutenant nodded.

“She has a point, Captain,” the lieutenant said. Justin seemed to agree.

“All right, because of the curfew there shouldn’t have been that many office workers when this shit hit. We head up one flight, search out a floor plan, and head for the most remote parking lot we can find,” Justin said. “Are you game?”

His stern look forced me to nod. “I’m game.”

Justin placed a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Mags, this is Lieutenant Rodrigo Marsden—”

“Call me Mars,” the lieutenant said, cutting Justin off.

“Mars,” I said, as my lips curved into a tiny smile, “like the candy.”

“Mags,” Mars said, stretching the name. His goofy expression made me grin.

“What’s your name?” Justin asked the flight attendant. I looked over and saw her blue uniform streaked with her colleague’s blood. She glanced up with a tear-filled gaze, her face puffy with eyes as dark as her hair. She took a breath.

“My name is Elizabeth,” she said with a shaky voice and a thick British accent. I had to bite my lip to stifle a laugh. She didn’t just share the queen’s name but sounded like her as well.

“My name is Captain Justin Decker,” he said, “but you can call me Decks.”

I looked at him in surprise. “I thought you went by Justin.”

“That name is reserved for when I want tall, beautiful women with buzzed haircuts to follow me,” he said and gave me a mischievous smile. Despite being annoyed, I felt a blush creeping up my face, and I subconsciously rubbed my head. Mars snorted a laugh. A laugh that reached his brilliant eyes without suggesting concern or pity warmed me inside. He seemed amused at my awkwardness at receiving a compliment.

Then a howling scream that sent shivers down my spine bounced off the concrete walls of the staircase.