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Combat Jump
Title: Combat Jump
Author: Slash Maraud
Rating: 18+
Disclaimer: None.
Summary: A short story that is within the Up From the Depths Universe. It takes place during the first week of the Zombie Infection. To get a chronological timeline to the Up From the Depths story, this event would have happened during the Claggett’s test of new deployment methods for SOF units. It does not contain any of the characters from UPFTD. There is some violence and language as expected in these circumstances.
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Interlude: Combat Jump: Central Park
Doris Mahan’s drug-flooded mind had reached the point of being oblivious to reality. She stood at her third floor balcony overlooking Central Park holding her baby son Samuel, ignoring his cries.
The smell of tear gas and the cacophony of a world ending no longer bothered her. Doris went inside to put Sam down for a nap and started wondering what to fix for an early supper. Would Wayne be home tonight? A small part of her brain said no, and that it was time for another pill.
Exactly 54 hours earlier New York City had begun to unravel.
“Disturbances” at LaGuardia and JFK airports, as well as the adjacent borough of Queens, had sent NYPD scrambling. The following morning, riot squads were out in force as the inexplicable epidemic spread. The Infection blazed into Brooklyn, consuming the population.
Staten Island, Manhattan, and the Bronx were somewhat insulated at first because of massive traffic jams leading away from the crisis. However, before the truly devastating scope of the Infection could be understood, a great number of their hospitals were swamped with medevac cases.
The Infection spread even faster in the Bronx for unknown reasons. The media had started out labeling the infected as rioters, crazies, looters. Now the words “undead” and even “zombie” were being tossed across the airwaves.
Soon the Big Apple would be teeming with Them.
Doris had started taking her anxiety pills several hours into the crisis. Wayne was on a day-trip to Long Island with a potential big sale looming. They had hoped to celebrate with a lavish dinner that evening. But Wayne never came home. He had not even phoned.
Not wanting to sound like what Wayne called a “Silly Sally”; Doris had waited until that afternoon to try his cell number. No answer. That is when she first visited the liquor cabinet.
Her throat was still burning from the first shot of vodka when a light knocking came from the apartment door. Doris rushed to the door, not bothering to even look through the peephole. The chain was thrown off, the door open… no Wayne. It was Mrs. Boc, the next-door tenant.
She was a frail old woman with an impossibly thick Polish accent. She cradled a bloody left arm in her right hand, pressing down with what used to be a light purple handkerchief. Mrs. Boc squawked several sentences to Doris, her gray eyes full of pain, and fear. All Doris could make out was the fact their doorman was missing, and a warning not to go to the park with Samuel this evening.
Doris had offered to bring her in and tend to her arm, but Mrs. Boc wouldn’t hear of it. She had blinked rapidly and made a comment regarding her sickly husband. The old lady ambled away.
Doris had returned to the television and started feeding Sam his supper. Once in awhile she would take a quick nip from a bottle of schnapps. The news had become grim, and now dire warnings were being broadcast. New York City seemed to be going to hell in the fast lane.
A report about blockades being placed on all of Manhattan’s bridges was interrupted by yet another bulletin. As Doris was changing the channel, she heard a faint yelling from next door, which was quite unusual; the Bocs were always quiet as death.
She hurried out to the balcony, hoping the Bocs had left their balcony doors open as they usually did on mild days. What she saw erased all reason in the world.
Mr. Boc was struggling with his walker out to the balcony, trying to escape his wife. She appeared to be biting his back and shoulders, an unearthly moaning coming from her toothless mouth.
Doris knew Mrs. Boc wore dentures, but nothing else she saw made any sense at all. Mr. Boc was panting heavily as he staggered against the railing. He summoned up what little strength he had and grabbed his wife by the shoulders, speaking Polish in a loud raspy voice. She slipped free from his feeble grasp and lunged at his throat.
They toppled over the railing.
That had been two days ago. Anytime a sliver of angst crept into Doris’ awareness, it was washed away with alcohol, pills, or both. She had spent most of her time on the balcony looking at her beloved Central Park. Sometimes she caught herself watching the sidewalks below, expecting Wayne to emerge from the unspeakable horrors taking place in broad daylight.
He never did.
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Mar/24/2007, 5:53 am
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