This is a shitty day, it started all kinds of wrong. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the signs.
‘Fabrizio, Fabrizio, are you there? Over’
The radio started spewing words and ruining my smoke time.
‘The fuck do you want, Marcello? Over’
‘We are going to move to the north. Enrio saw some little fucks running around a few hours ago, we think there is a horde somewhere. Have you seen anything? Over’
‘Nah! Haven’t seen any lately, but you never know with those things. Over’
‘Got it. Keep your eyes open, this are the first ones we’ve seen in a week. It’s too quiet out there. Over’
And that was the start of a really bad day.
Now that I think about it, apocalypse is like marriage; it just gets worse with kids. I know what you’re gonna say; some touchy-feely bullshit like “Kids are the future” or “My kids are a blessing” or some crap. Well, they are not when they are trying to fucking eat you.
Now picture a world where most people have died, shit is out of whack, some places blew the hell up, some others burned to the ground, some are just doing okay, and then add a few little bastards, fast as hell, afraid of nothing, silent like a fart, and cunning like a fucking cat.
When you see a kid, you don’t think of a fucking heartless killing machine; no one thinks that. I mean, they are so small, weak, and dumb. You can just get them by the legs and splash their brains against the walls… Yeah, right!
‘What’s up?’
Gino just came to replace me; my shift was finally over.
‘Nothing. Just a quiet day’
I give him the binoculars, and I am about to go down the stairs when the shooting starts.
‘The fuck is going on now?’
He looks at me.
‘How the hell am I gonna know?’
Then I remember.
‘Oh shit!’
‘What?’
‘Marcello called a few hours ago; his team is moving up north. They saw a few of the little bastards; they think there is a horde running around and hiding in the woods’
The shooting ramped up.
‘By the sound of it, I would say they were right’
The sound of the radio diverted our attention.
‘Fabrizio, are you there?’
‘I am here. What is going on over there?’
‘There are so many of them, you wouldn’t believe it… we didn’t… getting smarter’
The communications cut off.
‘Marcello, Marcello, can you hear me?’
‘Marcello’
There was no answer and then the shooting stopped.
‘This is bad’ Gino stated the obvious.
‘Stay here on watch; I will go down and tell the others’
I started packing my stuff; Gino moved closer to the wall.
‘Ah, Fabrizio’
‘What?’
‘Come see this’
I came closer to the wall. Three stories below, the little monsters stood looking up; their red eyes, those black veins covering their white dead skin, that bloody mouth with those black sharp teeth.
‘What the hell is this? They were not there five minutes ago’
‘How the hell did they find us?’
‘Who knows’
‘What are they waiting for?’
‘I don’t know, Gino; stop asking me questions.’
Then I looked further away into the trees. Things were getting worse and worse by the minute. If there is something I learned about this mess, it is to know what kind of zombie child is the most dangerous. Topping the list there were two kinds, first preadolescents, they were fast, kind of smart and strong enough to fuck shit up. Then the most dangerous ones, toddlers, those two to three-year-old little beasts, were deadly. Their tiny little bodies could hide anywhere and take you by surprise. One second everything is fine, and the next something jumps you out of nowhere, and their fucking little teeth are tearing your neck off.
Right now a bunch of those preteen fuckers were gathering in the woods and they were holding something; that was not a good sign.
‘Are those babies?’ Gino asked.
‘Yeah, I think so’
Babies are harmless; they have no strength, no teeth and can’t walk. They are just balls of rotting meat. I took the binoculars from Gino and looked at the little monsters.
‘What the fuck?!’
‘What is going on?’
‘Look for yourself’
I gave Gino the binoculars.
‘Are those tire inner tubes?’
‘Yeah’
I saw the little creeps use the rubber tubes as a catapult. Before we could try to do something, little babies were flying all around. A few of them fell on the building rooftop; they were bloated and green, and they bounced on impact like basketballs.
‘Pfffft’
First we heard the farts. Then the little fucks started shitting all over the roof.
‘Men, what the fuck is this shit?’
‘Well, you said it: it is shit’ I stated the obvious.
The green dead balls deflated rapidly as they emptied their innards on the floor. The stench was intolerable, but shit got worse when that yellow, putrid liquid started bubbling. Yeah, the roof was melting.
I looked at Gino, we nodded to each other, ran for the door, and closed it behind us.
The team was living in the second floor as a measure against an invasion; lower floor was used as store. Usually we tried to be quiet since noise attracts those things, and although the building was soundproof, it was better to be cautious; however, we had been found already, so I started banging on everyone’s door.
‘The fuck is going on?’
‘Alberto, the roof is melting’
‘What!?’ Everyone was in the hallway and had the same reaction.
‘Those preteens fuckers improvised catapults, they threw babies at us, they shat all over the roof and now the roof is melting’
We all looked at each other like idiots. Then they looked at Gino.
‘Yeah, the roof is melting’
Then Vicenzo came up the stairs from the ground floor.
‘You guys aren’t going to believe this. I took a peak by one of the tiny holes in the security doors, the children are squishing the babies and making them shit all over the walls’
‘This is getting stupider and weirder by the minute’
Alberto went down and came back a moment later carrying a few weapons and bullets.
‘We are screwed’
‘How screwed?’ I asked.
‘All the screw there is and my dick on top’
‘Which isn’t much worse!’
‘Fuck you, Silvia’
‘Cut the crap you two, how bad is it?’
‘Well, the walls are melting, and there is an army of them out there. Even the teenagers are here’
After the babies, teenagers were the least dangerous; they generally didn’t give a shit about anything and just stood lazily around ignoring everything. If even the teenagers were here, shit was getting real.
‘Go down and load on whatever you can; this will be a bad one’
We did as Alberto said. Everyone loaded on as many weapons and bullets as possible. After a few trips, we had an arsenal in the hallway.
‘The walls will melt soon enough. Go into the apartments and open the windows; blast as many of those bastards as you can. Vicenzo, stay in the hallway and watch the stairs; don’t let them pass’
And so we did. A few minutes later the bullets were ripping through the little bastards bodies. Although I think we just made things worse, more and more kept coming. After seeing the corpses piling up and how they could stand on them, they started to pile one on top of another, forming a ladder. It got so bad we had to close the windows and shut the security blinds.
Vicenzo started shooting in the hallway. We ran out of the rooms and helped him control the horde that was trying to get to the second floor. Something dropped over our heads, making a lot of noise and making the building tremble.
‘What the hell was that?’ Asked Silvia without stopping the shooting. I basically read her lips; there was too much noise.
‘The melted roof!’ I yelled as loud as I could; it seems they heard me.
We kept reloading and shooting down the hallway; the corpses were piling up fast.
A few minutes later, all hell broke loose. In hindsight it was obvious: if they can launch babies into the third floor, they can launch toddlers, and they did. Silvia was the first to be attacked, as five of those little fuckers started biting and pissing on her at the same time, she lost control of her gun, wounded me in the left leg, and blew Alberto’s brains out. Silvia was a lost cause, and we knew it; we opened fire, killed the rugrats and Silvia.
The lack of suppressing fire in the hallway proved fatal, Vicenzo was overrun, and Gino was bitten in the left shoulder. Together we made it into one of the apartments, and here I am. Gino is dying; the bite is already rotting his flesh at a visible speed. We are lucky adults don’t turn.
Now I imagine how it must have been in the first days, the adults didn’t know what was going on, and the unsuspecting parents were attacked by their own ravenous kids. What were they supposed to do? Kill them? Many of them didn’t mind being bitten; they just wanted to take their kids to the hospital. Five to ten minutes later, they were all dead; that bite is like a poison. Well, thank God I never wanted kids… not like it matters; I ended up in the same situation as the parents.
The door is melting; it is a good security door, but it can’t hold for too long. I got enough bullets to kill a few of them before I go down. Oh well, at least I will have some fun; I always hated kids anyways; always found them annoying; this is just an extra reason to.