C16 City – Country – River
At first, the road lay along the city’s outer limits through the suburbs. Slowly the housing became denser, transforming itself into a dense residential area with the usual discount stores, one dollar shops and car dealers with their standardized boring buildings.
Once in a while one of those things was staggering on the sidewalk, turning its greasy hair covered head in their direction. They saw one of the dead who repeatedly was running against a closed garden door, apparently too stupid to just push down the handle to open it up. Maybe he used to live there and did it out of habit.
When they reached a bigger intersection where turning left would have lead them to the Elbe-Bridge they had to find out that it had been destroyed as well as the railway bridge right next to it. The army apparently had done a thorough job, not forgetting one single bridge.
Nadja looked at the debris and shook her head in disbelief.
“Holy shit, that’s not possible. Those losers really have sealed off everything. What is to become of all the people on our side? Have they simply given up on everyone, on us? What’s your plan now, what’s next, hm?”
Markus just shrugged. “I have no idea. I just know that we have to get to the other side, no matter how. And something else, Nadja, stop the cursing, we have a child with us, okay?”
Nadja exhaled annoyed. “Bite me!”
Markus was raging inside. “Don’t tempt me!”
Countless vehicles were standing on the part of the road leading to the bridge, bumper to bumper all the way up to the edge of the demolition, some of them even hanging over it with their front tires.
Markus suppressed the urge to get out of the car and to walk to the edge of the bridge because he was afraid to walk into a trap between the vehicles because he could see some movement behind some of the vehicles‘ smeared windows.
A sharp right turn led deeper into town, where some of the creatures were wandering around without orientation as if they were window shopping. At least this town was big enough for Christmas lighting consisting of huge stars with long trails, which had been hung above the streets. One zombie even still had a shopping bag which was torn open in its hand, contents were scattered on the sidewalk.
As soon as the dead saw the car they turned around and walked towards it with shuffling feet. Some of them were even reaching out their arms like in one of those really bad movies. Those things were like remote controlled drones, searching persistently for a target and once they found it switching to attack mode right away.
Here, too, the streets gave the impression as if a merciless fight had taken place. The wind had blown newspapers onto the road. Garbage bins had been turned over and rummaged, their contents now scattered everywhere on the ground. Some cars had collided with cars parked at the road side, pushing them over the sidewalk right up to the building walls.
On an intersection a little farther up the road there was an ambulance from the Red Cross, its doors standing wide open from which a gurney was hanging out sideways. Bandaging material was scattered around the vehicle, waving in the cold winter wind like long flags.
Markus was reminded of news images when on the 1st of May liberals would demonstrate out of tradition in the streets of Berlin and Hamburg, building barricades out of garbage bins and burning cars to stop the police from advancing.
It looked exactly the same here only that in addition to the dirt too many clothes were lying around as well. And shoes, always shoes. Any kind, every kind. Boots, loafers, sneakers and even high heels were lying around.
Nadja avoided looking at the poor souls at all, instead she kept staring at her hands and somehow it seemed as if she had given up.
“Just keep on driving, I don’t care where to, those things are everywhere anyways and they’ll catch us sooner or later. That’s the only thing that is for sure, you can trust me on that. We’re gonna get eaten, Markus. It’s just a matter of time.”
Though crushed by despair as well, Markus was so desperate for hope that he would make it himself if he had to do so.
“That’s bullshit. We won’t give up, do you hear me? There’s still a road ahead which clear. And we’ll take it to get away from here.”
Markus sped up the vehicle, kept driving straight ahead and crossed some rusty railroad shortly after. To their right was the city centre filled with monsters and to their left the insurmountable river Elbe. Basically, they had no other choice than to keep on driving straight ahead.
They came to a big factory gate only shortly after the intersection. To both sides of the gate a head-high stone wall was encompassing the area behind it. The dark blue nameplate of a shipyard was stretched above the wide open entrance gate. Markus stopped the car and scratched his chin undecided.
“What do you think?” He looked at Nadja enquiringly. “The compound has high walls and it seems abandoned.”
Nadja shrugged indifferently. “It’s fine. Anything‘s better than driving through the city.”
Her resignation started to get on his nerves. What they needed now was a clear head and the will to carry on. For him it was easier because he had a destination, but he really started to worry about the Polish woman.
“Don’t lose hope, Nadja, I’m sure that we’ll find help on the other side of the river. Why blow up the bridges otherwise? They are using the Elbe as a natural barrier, that’s how it is. The only thing we really need now is a way to cross this damn river.”
Markus was afraid that Nadja would simply give up because that was the last thing he would need in this situation. If she went crazy, he would not make it any much further, all by himself and with the child in tow. Nadja was beat, her face showed the extreme tension she was suffering under.
“What was it again with the cursing, Markus? Hm?”
He exhaled deeply, guilty as charged. “All right, all right. You’ve got a point. Nadja, we have to pull ourselves together, do you understand? You want to survive this as well and leave the whole thing behind you unscathed.”
At the same time, Markus was unconsciously looking at himself in the rearview mirror, noticing that he did not look much better himself. Deep furrows had formed around his eyes and mouth, his eyes were sunken deeply into dark holes and his chin was once again covered with stubbles.
At least the woman nodded now. “Okay, the shipyard it is. Let’s try our luck. Maybe we’ll find a boat, who knows.”
Marie was stirring on the backseat and the adults asked themselves for how long she had been listening to them already. It was astonishing how calm the little one was.
“Yes, please, I want to ride a boat. Please, let‘s ride a boat! The bad people can‘t reach us there.”
The child voiced what the adults had been thinking all along anyways. They were safe on the water because the monsters were probably too stupid to swim. Markus examined the little one in the mirror.
“You’re right Marie, we’ll see if we find a boat. And then all of us will be going home together.”
Directed at Nadja, he continued: “I can very well imagine that there will be some rescue crews about on the water. Just because it is safe there and one can move along fast.”
The woman ran her hands through her hair. “Could be. But I haven’t seen any boat on the water so far, did you?”
He had never found himself in such an extreme situation before. He had switched to some kind of continuous duty where he just acted and avoided to think too much about anything.
Whenever he found himself in a situation like this, the associated stress manifested itself by extreme itchiness which would spread over his whole body soon. And in connection to that the wish was growing to wash off the dried sweat and to rub his whole body with a soothing lotion to relax his skin.
“No, Nadja, I haven’t seen anything, nothing at all.“
Then he accelerated and drove through the gate, passing a warning sign prohibiting an unlawful entry which would be punished by the police. Nice joke.
The shipyard’s area was stretching close by the river. They were driving between piled up mountains of scrap iron and half dilapidated ship pieces towards a huge hall in the middle of the area where some hulks and other iron constructions were jacked up.
The hall had a gigantic entrance door spanning nearly across its entire width. This was where the train tracks vanished in the dark of the building. Without thinking too long Markus drove on just following the tracks into the darkness because he did not like this cold place with all the iron and he wanted to leave it behind him as fast as possible.
“I don’t like this whole thing. Not enough routes of escape. So, eyes closed and straight through, right?”
Nadja nodded silently. She eyeballed the surroundings with tired eyes. “Oh man. I’m so sick of it all. I could really use something to drink right about now. And a warm room, with a shower and all that stuff. Maybe even a good, quick fuck!”
Markus shook his head but did not say anything. Not that he was not longing for the same things as well, but to talk about them right now was more than unfitting. It was better to concentrate on the half dark hall in front of him before they encountered some unpleasant surprises. In the past, he used to be in such halls a lot work-related to install machinery. He had never felt comfortable in those impersonal and dirty-cold buildings which were built strictly for functionality. No warm soul was living in all this dirt and metal; everything was dead and cold. Nothing had grown naturally here but had been built instead by smart people to produce things the necessity of things he had often questioned.
Just as he had pondered about before, a human being reduced himself to a machine quickly in such an environment, quite comparable in this regard to the zombies out there. Not only did the common language become rough and lowbrow but the own rules were forgotten quite fast as well.
Other laws were in place here. He remembered a man who he had observed many years ago in one of those huge steelworks in Siegen during his breakfast break in a tiny wooden shed. Not only his clothes but also his skin had taken on the pitch-black color of the steel dust. One could see how the pores of his skin were virtually breathing the dark powder.
His face had looked like it was cast from metal, his eyes sparkling like bright circles in contrast to the rest of his appearance. He had peeled a white egg with black fingernails and put it in his mouth in one piece. His fingers had left black marks on the egg shell which did not seem to trouble him too much.
Everything in the breakfast area had been metallic grey and the man nearly disappeared in it. He had become a part of the big steel like a piece of the machine. To function he had to eat. He had to eat this egg. There was no thought; only action.
To survive, the man had become mechanical.
Markus returned to the here and now. Tools, helmets and clothes were lying around on the ground everywhere, witnesses of the catastrophe which now dated back nine days. As they exited the hall on the opposite side through an identical gate they reached a huge open field. This was where the rusty tracks ended as well. Two slightly smaller dilapidated buildings were located on the opposite side, to their left and right were more of the omnipresent steel scarps.
Some freight cars covered with snow were standing on the tracks all the way in the back and there was even an old dark-blue railway crane with thick rusty chains. Melt water was dripping everywhere. Between the buildings huge iron frameworks had been built to store rusty parts and in between huge containers with unknown content and more scrap steel. The whole area lay abandoned before them and dead things were nowhere to be seen.
This was not really a good place to stay long, especially not in their situation, but better than what they had seen on the way. Markus stopped on the other side of the field between the two ramshackle huts because the road ended there.
“Shit, it’s a damn dead end!” he murmured barely audible. He scratched his head nervously and licked his dried lips. The annoying itchiness was there instantly and he was sliding from side to side on his seat. Then he got out of the car and continued walking with stiff legs. There was really no going forward from here because the road ended for good in front of a low quay wall behind which lay the dock with access to the Elbe.
“Are you kidding me? Is there not one thing that simply works out?”
He was in despair. He had hoped that they could keep on driving and not have to drive through the city in the end. The certainty that they had to go back after all exhausted him and started to bring him to his knees. He was able to subdue his disappointment only with effort. With dull eyes he observed some seagulls bobbing up and down on the water looking attentively in his direction. Their yellow beaks were the only dash of color in this otherwise bleak environment. Nadja had left the car as well and came to the edge, lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and was smoking it in this nervous, erratic manner which Markus could not stand. The woman stared onto the water surface expressionless.
“You brought us to a damn headland,” she sighed. Her voice was harsh but it had no teeth. “Well done, Markus. What do you want to do now, swim like one of those damned seagulls?”
Markus did not say anything. Nadja kept on ranting.
“Don’t you have anything more ideas, Mister ‘There’s always a way out’. It’s a damn trap here, love, that’s what it bloody is!”
Dead end. Nadja’s words hurt him, adding to the burning rage already bubbling up inside him. She behaved as if she had known this already all along and if she knew her way around here by heart. He would have loved to hit her but he was able to restrain himself and only his clenched fists were showing how irritated he really was.
“Now listen to me. I have as much a clue as you as to where those shitty roads will lead. I don’t know this area a bit and I don’t want to because I don’t want to be here at all.”
His narrowed eyes displayed his anger as eloquently as his fists. “I don’t know where we are but if you have a better idea than please voice it or otherwise just shut the hell up.”
Furious, he turned around and marched back to the car. He finally had it with this shit and he came really close to simply get in the car and leave her behind with her cigarette in her hand. Just a tiny distant voice in his head warned him not to overreact or even go crazy.
She had simply voiced what he had been thinking anyways. But the constant tension made him irritable and his nerves were more than on edge.
“I simply want to survive, to go back to my friends”, Nadja said without turning around to him. “Away from this horror, don’t you understand that? I want everything to be back to how it used to be.”
Her voice sounded shaken up and very insecure, it echoed somehow ghastly over the water, letting the seagulls fly up startled. The animals then settled down again on the other shore, cawing in protest. The woman was really afraid that he would really leave her here all by herself. Markus turned around still furious, ready to fight it out.
“Nadja, when will you understand that the world will never be the same again. Just open your eyes already! Everything is going down the drain and the only things left are us and the hope – even if it is only a small one – to find something more normal deeper in the South. But if you prefer to stay here, be my guest.”
By then, he had gotten really upset. Judging by her posture and her shaking shoulders he could detect that she was crying. He regretted his words and his whole reaction right away. That was not what he had wanted.
“Hey Nadja, we really shouldn’t be fighting now. There’s no use in doing so. Let’s see to it that we get away from here as fast as possible – together and unharmed.”
Markus tried to give in because he felt uncomfortable here on this open terrain between the water and the hall. Somehow claustrophobic and without a way of escape. It was gloomy behind the dirty windows, anything could be hiding in there. Even an army of zombies, aligned towards the entrance door only waiting for the gate to hell to be opened by some clueless idiot, so that they would be spat out to murder and to satisfy their boundless hunger for fresh meat.
If there was a place for a perfect trap it would be here. The moment he was about to go back to Nadja to convince her to get back into the car he heard a metallic sound coming from the workshop. It sounded from afar like a tool which had fallen to the ground from one of the workbenches.
Markus winced with a silent cry, turned around and stared into the gaping black hole of the entrance. Nadja only saw Markus’ reaction and whimpered silently out of fear as well. Then there was another sound, but nothing was visible inside the gloomy hall except the other entrance’s small bright rectangle. The Polish woman quickly moved towards the car, stood beside Markus and kept staring at the hall’s entrance door.
Everything around her disappeared, only the gloomy opening before them was important. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She thought about the behaviors of sacrificial animals, like deer, which have heard a sound in the woods and then were standing there motionless with their head raised, waiting.
They were simply standing there waiting for something to happen that would confirm their instinct, giving them the impulse to flee. On instinct they reached for the weapons and did not dare to take their eyes off the hall even for a second. The fear of what might come out of the darkness into the light was simply too great.
Markus decided in favor of the rifle this time. He had never shot at a human being before and was not sure if he was able to really do it. The blurred light spot inside the workshop’s darkness began to make them believe that they saw movements, bodies which were slowly moving towards them.
Both of them were holding on to the hope that their tired, overstrained minds were playing tricks on them. But the low rattling sound coming from the hall was no imagination and announced the arrival of death. It carried with it the horrible certainty that the images in front of their eyes were the harsh reality. The monsters had scented the fresh meat and were now moving towards them. Markus was the first to break free from the spell.
“We have to get out of here, as fast as possible!” he uttered agitated while he simultaneously opened the backdoor to get Marie out of the car. What he saw hit him like a punch to the gut. The backseat was empty!
“Holy shit, Nadja, where’s the little one?”
He turned towards the still motionless woman who still had no clue what to do next. “I haven’t seen her. I have no idea!”
Finally the Polish woman started moving. She ran around the car, but Marie was not hiding there either. Panic rose, grew like an evil fear inside her, urging up.
“Look over there at the pier or by the buildings, she has to be somewhere,” Markus shouted after her in excitement.
His gaze kept swaying back to the hall’s entrance, he was still holding on to the hope that the monsters had not left the building or even turned back, but deep inside he knew already that this was not the case.
Soon enough, the shadows would transform into bodies, a lot of them to be precise. By now the dead army’s shuffling feet were clearly audible paired up with their dried throats’ drooling rattling sounds. Markus grabbed his rifle tighter, noticing that he was shaking. Cold sweat was running down his neck, burning on his skin. Meanwhile, Nadja had dragged her most important stuff behind the small building right next to the quay wall, kept running back and forth like a headless chicken.
“I cannot find the child. I’ve searched everywhere!” she uttered stressed. Markus swallowed.
“We’re screwed, Nadja, they are coming. Then look again, will you, she must be somewhere, do you understand.”
Nadja was sweating and shaking with fear. No means of escape, no exit, nothing what would help to save them.
“Damn it, Markus, I don’t want to die. We just break through with the car and leave the child behind.” She had one foot inside the vehicle already, but Markus shook his head.
“It’s too late Nadja, it’s simply too late.”
He took Annette’s picture down from the dashboard and put it in a pocket. At least he wanted her to be with him in this way if he had to die here. His gaze was concentrated on the first creatures which had just stepped out into the open. They were two men in stained working clothes, probably shipyard workers.
Markus knew that there would be more. And he was unfortunately right about that. At that moment a never ending wave gushed out of the hall’s dark maw onto the yard. Markus’ knees got week and started trembling like an old man‘s when he saw the amount of those things moving towards him.
He had never seen that many all at once, not even back at the gas station. What made those assholes group up and hunt together? Even if he managed to kill one with each bullet, which was impossible by the way, it would be by far not enough to stop this stampede.
End of the line, ran through his head.
They would die a horrible death by the monsters‘ mouths here in this filthy East German shipyard the name of which he did not even know. There was no sign of Nadja and Markus slowly retreated back to the quay. He wanted to avoid a collision with those things for as long as possible, to prolong the final moment longer.
Farther back he heard Nadja’s desperate screams, calling Marie’s name, the words reached his ears like through a fog. A maximum of twenty meters were separating him from the water, maybe even less. Nervously his gaze scurried around his surroundings, searching hectically for exits, for hiding spots, which would be strong enough to withhold this assault.
A quick glance at the right building was enough to know that this was no refuge, the windows were too big and the door consisted of thin half-rotten wood. The building on the other side was also in no better condition. So, there was no other option left than to retreat, step by step. His heart started beating heavily and awakened his inner enemy, his illness and its associated shortness of breath.
“Damn it, Nadja, where are you? Say something!”
Only ten more meters separated him from those things. Unstoppable, they were moving forward, like machines following a predetermined program. Unstoppable and without compromise.
His finger pulled the weapon’s trigger almost automatically and the first shot thundered. The recoil released energy reserves.
At first he just shot at the legs, but his fear of death forced him soon enough to aim at their bodies and finally at their heads. Blindly he just pulled the trigger, one shoot after the other. Like back in Platkow his blood began to whoosh, taking control over his body’s functions.
The bodies had crowded so closely together that it was hard for him to miss them. It must have been hundreds of them or even thousands, but it did not matter. One bullet after another found its target but the gaps were filled up quickly again by the pushing bodies.
They were simply marching over their fallen predecessors, trampling over them and moving forward, smashing their faces and bodies with their feet as if it was dirt. Everybody wanted to be the first to feast.
A quick glance behind him revealed to him that he had reached the end of the road. Behind him was only the slightly elevated edge and then the water. The monsters were now only five meters away and were closing in from all directions. Their numbing smell was descending on him relentlessly, announcing the final moment. The smell was so horrible it made his eyes tear up and he was nearly too afraid to inhale deeply. He would not be able to do this anymore anyways soon.
He could see their faces very clearly now, their black mouths opening and closing incessantly. He heard himself babbling something but could not understand his own words. Four more meters and the semicircle became increasingly narrower, greedily the ones in the front were reaching their rotten hands out towards him. Their jaws were now making hectic chewing motions; their mouths were rattling mad with greed.
Markus’ heart was drumming in staccato, he literally felt his blood rushing in his veins, his breath came intermittently and fast, he felt how his bronchia were closing up, but he did not care, death was imminent. Yellowish pus was dripping out of their mouths and noses, running down their faces in long threads, polluting the air.
Three meters.
He dropped the now useless weapon.“Nadja!” he roared full with fear, even though he knew quite well that she could not help him because she was probably dead herself by now. The only answer he received was a horrid rattling noise coming from countless dried up throats which made him realize that even if Nadja shown up armed to her teeth she would not make it through to him.
Two meters.
By now he could make out the insatiable greed in their milky eyes, saw broken teeth and blackened searching tongues in their wide opened mouths. The smell of decay was penetrating his nose, exhaled by the dead throats.
One meter.
As the first fingertips were reaching for him he simply let himself fall backwards. As he was falling he could see how those things were falling over one another as all of them reached for him and became furious over losing the ostensibly safe prey at the last moment.
The run was so big that some of the creatures were pushed into the water by the succeeding crowd. Still in free fall he hit his head hard against a bollard sticking out of the water. For a brief moment he saw black in front of his eyes and white spots were dancing a crazy pattern behind his eyelids.
Then there was only water, the ice-cold waves were closing above him, water was running into his mouth and nose. Right away he could not breathe anymore, his whole body felt like being chained down by icy bonds which were tightening slowly. Thousand glistering stars were exploding inside his head.
Suddenly he resurfaced, trying some awkward swimming movements and coughing and gasping for air. With a blurred sight he recognized all around him the monsters‘ heads which had fallen into the water as well and were now trying to reach him with clumsy movements. Like little children who were trying to swim by themselves for the first time.
Kicking, he distanced himself with great effort in the direction he hoped would lead him away from the shore. It felt like if he was swimming through tenacious ice-cold dough, everything was heavy like lead, trying to pull him under.
You won’t make it. The doubt was like an anchor.
A shape was drawing closer and Markus asked himself if the dead had learned to swim. The last thing that Markus saw was the shadowy shape of a long arm reaching for him. One second later Markus’ mind decided to rather drown than to be eaten alive. Then he gave into the undertow and sank to the bottom like a stone.
From: [email protected]
Datum: 01.01.2014 09:14:54 a.m.
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