The Marine Corp CH-53K Super Stallion banked low over the Arkansas River, dodging trees and telephone poles as the thirty members of Lt. Rhine’s platoon sat in the back holding on for dear life. Rhine pulled himself to his feet and made his way up to where the pilot and copilot were weaving the massive helicopter at tree top level.

“We are five minutes out, better get your boys up and ready! We won’t be touching down, the refugees will swarm us if we do.” the pilot yelled.

Rhine slapped his shoulder and attempted to walk to the back of the helicopter without falling on his face as the CH-53 took another hard turn. The thirty Army Rangers under his command had been tasked as the sector’s quick reaction force, or “QRF”. They were the stop gap force for the defensive line along the Arkansas River; being deployed and re deployed to fill gaps all along the line. They had received a replacement Lieutenant to take Rick’s spot after evacuating Dallas, but he had not lasted long. He had been fresh out of West Point and full of piss and vinegar when he showed up to take command while the platoon was holding a blocking position North of Oklahoma City. It was too bad he didn’t have the common sense to go with the book smarts that had got him through “The Point.” As his second in command, Rhine had warned him not to venture off on his own for any reason. While Rhine was away assessing their squads positioned along the defensive line, the Lieutenant had gone off on his own to take a dump in private. He never saw the Z that came stumbling out of the bushes right into him until its teeth sank in to his shoulder. When Rhine reached his position, he found the ghoul dead and the Lieutenant bleeding heavily from a gaping hole in his shoulder. He was sobbing but it took a lot less for Rhine to put a bullet in his head then it had the lady at the bank. He had felt no sympathy for the man. His stupidity has cost him his life and even worse, all the gear and ammo that he had been carrying was now infected and useless. Even still, Rhine felt like every time he had to put someone down he lost a little bit more of himself. With the Army now running dangerously low on officers,  Rhine had gone from being a 26 year old Sergeant First Class to a twenty six year old 2^nd Lieutenant via battlefield promotion. It was not exactly how Rhine had hoped to earn his Lieutenants bars but then again, nothing these days was anything close to ideal.

Continue reading ‘The Arkansas City Bridge Toll’

The residents of Tipperary Hill have a tradition of gathering underneath the green on top traffic light at midnight as St. Patrick’s Day begins. They would make their way to the corner of Tompkins and Burnet Park Drive to paint a shamrock in the intersection. The tradition had been going on for as long as they could remember.

Every year since she was a wee lass, Erin O’Sullivan gathered with her fellow Tipp Hill neighbors for the festivities. Erin and her friends would then make their way down the street to Coleman’s or Nibsy’s to finish off the night. The next morning, at least one of her friends would be found in a snow bank where they had passed out a few hours earlier. They would get up and stumble back to one of the local bars to celebrate their favorite patron saint.

After the invasion, Erin felt the need to continue the festivities. After all, it was a tradition.

Late in the afternoon of March 16th, Erin set her plan in motion. Over the long winter, she gathered the necessities and set them aside. She found a push broom in the parking garage that would serve as her brush. She found two cans of green paint in a storage room in the hotel. The only tricky part was figuring out a way to get to her canvas.

Erin hid the paint cans in a backpack and took her broom towards the front gate of the Zone. It was almost springtime in Central New York. The snow from the long winter had begun to melt and Erin told anyone who asked that she was going out to sweep Syracuse clean. No one asked.

After getting to Route 81, Erin walked south a while before finding a car that she could drive the rest of the way.

Erin arrived at her destination a little before midnight. It was almost St. Patrick’s Day. It was almost time.

The traffic light was no longer working, and no one else had come out to continue the tradition with her, but Erin had to continue. She removed the cans of paint from her pack and pried off the tops. It wasn’t the right shade of green, but it would suffice. She used her broom to spread the paint around the intersection, doing her best to form the shape of a shamrock. The others that had done it before her made it look so easy.

As the clock struck midnight, she had completed her masterpiece. She hadn’t let the zombie apocalypse end the decades of this tradition.

It was then that Erin noticed the crowd that had gathered under the light, just like they had in the past.

In the morning, after passing out in a snow bank, Erin rose and stumbled down Tompkins towards Coleman’s.

After all, it was tradition.

William knew that he had a one in twenty chance of being a victim of a serious crime, and a one in eighteen-thousand chance of being murdered. It’s what he did for a living.

Being a risk assessor, he knew that it lay everywhere, and he hated it.

Image what it’d be like to see the world from William’s eyes. Skeptical, paranoid even-about everything. He hated going outside for extended periods of time, knowing that his odds of being struck by lightning were one in ten-thousand four hundred and six. Getting ready in the morning was an even bigger task for him; the odds of fatally injuring yourself while shaving, or slipping in the tub are much higher than you’d expect. Going to work was a completely different story too, his odds of dying in an automobile accident were one in seventy-five. Numbers he didn’t like.

Having an overly analytic mind didn’t do much for Will’s personality either. He’d always been the secluded guy, trying to hide from the world and its potential perils. His anti-social nature didn’t seem to upset him much however. Why try and find a nice woman to settle down with, when the odds of a lasting marriage were barely anything. Wasting time was not an item on William’s agenda.

But being alone perhaps was to William’s advantage. He didn’t have to worry about anyone other than himself; and that was enough stress as it was. He didn’t keep pets, or any friends really. Who knew if-or when, they’d turn on him. He had a one in seven-hundred thousand chance of dying from a dog bite. It was an unnecessary risk that he wasn’t willing to take.

Change was bad for William. Order, precision, and routine were his ways of life. He preferred life his way, his numbers providing some sort of sick, twisted solace. They were real, and they didn’t lie.

But what happened when he couldn’t calculate the chance of the undead rising?

At least he knew his odds for becoming injured while using a chain saw: one in four-thousand four-hundred and sixty four.