Griff rolled his eyes and looked as though he was going to go on a rant about ESP. Maddy jumped in quickly, making a capital T with her hands. “This is Daniel Magnus we’re talking about. We all know he has a ton of lobbyists. He practically has the government in his back pocket and God only knows how many spies at his beck and call. So, if he’s worried about nukes, we should be twice as worried. I’m going south.”
“Me too,” Bryce said, raising his hand. He knows what cannot be known, the words echoed in his head. “ESP or spies, I think we can trust him on this.”
“I was going anyway,” Griff said. He glanced at Wilkes. “What about you? You could be helping to save humanity.” This was so close to how Grae-zier had described the mission that Bryce felt an odd tug from within. Was this confirmation of a vision? Judging by Wilkes’ reaction: a sour look as he turned away, digging for his radio, he didn’t think it was.
Bryce watched him go, feeling a little let down and oddly vulnerable. Although Wilkes’ motives were purely selfish, he had still been something of an ally, and at great risk had helped to keep Bryce alive.
As much as he wanted Wilkes to join them, he needed most of the others in the store to stay put. They would be a drag on them, slowing them down, making them more vulnerable. Speed and secrecy were their greatest hope.
“We may want everyone else to stay put,” he said, speaking in general, though his eyes strayed to Nichola and Victoria. He hoped one of them would step up and act as leader of the group he wanted to leave behind. “You’ll need to find a better place to hole-up, one that’s more defensible.”
Nichola leaned back from him. “I know you’re not talking to me because I’m going, too. There’s no way I’m staying with these guys. They’re…” An entire host of adjectives sprang to mind; none of them were good. “They’re unlucky.” It was the least objectionable and truly the most accurate word she could come up with.
Victoria, who felt like she was the unluckiest of them all, said, “I’m going one way or the other. My husband and son are at the plaza. If the FBI is still alive then they are too. I know it in my veins.”
So much for that. Bryce hoped his disappointment didn’t show. “Do we invite anyone else?”
There were a few younger, stronger men in the group who were relatively unhurt. However, they were corralling families, and Griff voiced his fear that they would demand that their wives and kids came too. Their journey would revert back to a parade of the walking wounded in no time.
“We have to tell someone we’re leaving,” Maddy said. “It wouldn’t be right to just up and go. Maybe Sid? People seem to like him.” This was agreed to but Sid was passed out in one of the beds, clutching a bottle Johnnie Walker Black like it was a teddy bear. Maddy went to talk to Michelle Jones, a young mother of two. Maddy liked her because she had smart, wary eyes and had kept her children, a boy and a girl in line.
While she was gone, Bryce dug through the backrooms in search of a better weapon and came up with a hickory-handled ten-pound sledgehammer. With so much weight on one end, it was an awkward weapon. For Bryce who was in an equally awkward stage, the hammer was a little too short to use two-handed, but it was also a little too heavy to use one-handed.
He also lacked the training or practice to wield it like he had the pipe or the sword. His wrists kept wanting to turn over like he was swinging a baseball bat and when that happened the weighted end twisted his wrists painfully. The first time he made the attempt, the hammer flew out of his hands to strike a partially built credenza with a loud crash.
Wilkes rushed in a second later, a hunk of a bed frame held over his head at the ready. He snorted, “Did it try to bite you?” Bryce said nothing to this. As he picked the hammer from the remains, Wilkes offered to trade, holding up the piece of wood he carried, “I’ll give you this for that. It’s lighter. More your speed.”
It looked like it would crack in two if he used it on the wrong zombie. “I’ll pass, thank you.”
The perpetual bitter look on Wilkes’ face drew away briefly and when it did, he looked younger, and frightened. “I’m not getting any more info on what’s going on downtown,” he admitted, his eyes pinned to the floor. “Nothing. The situation is fubar all the way. The comm channels are filled with guys screaming for help. Positions getting overrun. People turning into fucking zombies. Ammo going fast or already gone. Everyone begging to be evacuated. It’s…it’s fucked up.”
Bryce didn’t like the fear in Wilkes’ eyes. If he was afraid, Bryce knew he should be trying to keep from wetting his pants. To take his mind off the looming fear, he tried another practice swing with the hammer; it still felt off. “I need to hit something. That’s my problem.” It wasn’t like a sword that you could swish through the air.
“Are you listening to me?” Wilkes demanded, grabbing the hickory handle near the head. “The army is all over the place and at the same time they’re nowhere.”
“I get it. The situation is fucked up. It’s why we’re going south.” Bryce yanked the hammer away and walked to where some plastic covered mattresses stood leaning upright against one wall. He hefted the hammer.
Before he could swing it, Wilkes slammed his open palm down on a desk that was three-quarters built. It went to pieces under his palm. He stared at the wreckage. “This feels like some sort of metaphor. Or maybe it’s a sign. You think it’s a sign?”
“Nope,” Bryce answered, paused with the hammer cocked and ready. “The idea of seeing the future is scary. Are we going to get killed trying to stop what only might happen? Will we cause it to happen by rushing into that cloud? Are we just deluding ourselves and all this ESP stuff is just a load of garbage?” He kept trying to tell himself it was garbage and yet he still felt the guilt of having gone into that subway tunnel to begin with.
“Maybe we should forget the future,” he said and took a mighty swing at the mattresses. It was like swinging at a soft trampoline. The head sank a foot deep and then rebounded with almost equal force. Bryce found himself flying back, trailing after the hammer, an idiotic look on his face.
The next second, he was lying on the dusty floor.
Across from him Wilkes was staring as if he had just opened a birthday present and found a stripper inside. Then he threw his head back and laughed until his face was red and tears streamed down his cheeks.
Chapter 47
“I knew it,” Wilkes said, his chest hitching. “I got the ESP. I saw it happen in my head…the hammer… and then…” He had to grab his sides as the laughter felt like it was on the verge of bursting out of him.
Griff came in a little later and Bryce was still lying on the cement with his arm outstretched. By then, he was laughing too.
“You missed it!” Wilkes cried in a high-pitched voice. He could barely breathe and he was so red in the face that with his laugh-squinting eyes, he looked a little like a pig. A crying pig. “He…he…he…” That was the most he could get out for some time and for a few minutes after that, he would chortle out of the blue and then sigh, happily.
“Are we ready?” Griff asked the small group as Maddy, the last, filtered in.
“Not quite,” Bryce said. There was one too many of them and at the sight, and the smell of the angry merc, Bryce lost the last of his laughter. The man’s eyes were red and furious; his lips kept lifting in a snarl. It was a wonder he could keep from attacking them. “One of the wounded has to be uh, dealt with.”
Griff frowned, missing what Bryce was trying to say. “We don’t have time for any of that. We’ve handed out a ton of pain meds. It should be good.” Maddy gave him a tight-lipped smile and shook her head. Wilkes had stopped laughing and now he turned away. Nichola went to inspect the mattresses.
The merc look confused at the hold-up. “We gotta kill one? Then let’s go. What are we waiting for?”
“Kill?” Griff asked. “Oh, right. I get it. Yes, we should kill it. Bryce?” Griff had a table leg, which was weak; Wilkes the length of wood, also weak; Maddy
had her climbing axe stuck down in a sagging belt loop, and Nichola had her bat. Victoria had no weapon at all.
The hammer made sense as the weapon of choice to those who hadn’t seen him make a fool of himself. His shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess. Let’s kill it,” he said this last bit to the merc. “After you.” The big man went stomping off, a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth, his bleary red eyes hard on the door. Inside him, the excitement to kill brewed and bubbled, close to boiling over. Just giving in to it was changing him faster.
The smell coming up from his pores turned Bryce’s stomach but it also hardened his resolve. “We’ll make it quick,” he told the merc. “Painless.”
“Zombies don’t feel pain,” the merc growled. His own pain was cresting inside his skull. It was like there were a thousand fire ants biting and biting. “And they don’t deserve painless anything. I’d torture all of ‘em if I…”
He didn’t see Bryce hurry up and swing the heavy hammer two-handed. He didn’t feel it, either. The metal head sunk three inches deep and the merc ceased being angry in a blink.
“Shit,” Bryce muttered. A strange hatred spiked inside him. It was hatred for the merc, and stupid people who got themselves infected, and weak people who couldn’t step up when killing had to be done. He hated those hiding and those who wouldn’t fight. If they came out of their apartments en masse the apocalypse would be over in two days.
In short, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was hatred for people and that hatred extended to himself. It got worse as he had to work the hammer back and forth to get it free. With each movement, forward and back, there was a crunchy sound like thick eggshell cracking.
Maddy heard every crunch as well as the slurpy, sucking noise the metal made when Bryce finally got it free. The infected brain was already dark and gooey…and the smell! It was akin to rancid milk, but with a copper tang. With a hand over her mouth, she hurried for the short hallway that ended in a back exit. It opened onto an alley where she took a deep gasping breath—and began choking.
The wind had turned north and now the smoke from a hundred fires was pouring along the streets. It had a chemical stench that was better than the past-due brain smell; however, under that was the hideous aroma of roasting flesh.
“This is insane,” Wilkes said, stepping out into the dark cloud. With it being night on top of the smoke, he couldn’t see ten feet. Something monstrous roared overhead; a bomber? A sleek grey fighter? Or was it an ICBM with a payload of nukes? It was impossible to say. “How are we supposed to get anywhere in this?” Earlier, he had found black sheets to replace the rags he’d been wearing over his street clothes and now he pulled the cloth over his nose making him look like a Bedouin.
Behind him, the others were gagging in the hall.
“We push through,” Bryce said. After the appalling stench of the merc’s brain, the smoke wasn’t so bad to him.
He had started off alone when Nichola said, “Hold on. I’m gonna get some sheets, too. The smell…Just wait for me, K?” The others went back for sheets, too even Maddy. After her first gagging breath, she hadn’t been able to control her breathing. Each gulp of air had brought with it a horrible taste and she was somewhere between hyperventilating and vomiting.
Wilkes had remained. “You understand that the FBI in New York isn’t linked to the White House, right?”
“I’m sure they have a way to call,” Bryce said. Even with just his dark eyes showing, Bryce could read Wilkes’ thoughts. They hadn’t strayed far in the last hour. “Trust me, I wish we could get a boat. That would be the dream.” He could picture it: a sailing yacht, eighty feet at the waterline, crisply white with enormous baby blue silk sails. He had never sailed before, but didn’t think it would be hard to learn.
“The only problem is where would we go? You think when the missiles fly we’ll be able to outrun the radiation? You think they’ll stop with New York? You’ve seen the news. The dead are everywhere and once the government starts using nukes, it won’t end. Pressing a button is so much easier and safer than coming out and actually fighting.”
Wilkes muttered into his rags, “That’s exactly why I say we’re wasting our time. Trust me, I know how the government works. Washington is filled with yes-men and lobbyists and people living high on the hog. It’s a mean, selfish town. They don’t care about you and me. They don’t care about this country or doing the right thing. All they care about is themselves and you can bet your ass that half of them have already taken off running.”
Bryce gazed up at the smoke, his mind harkening back to Grae-Zier and his curled lip. Wilkes could’ve been describing him. The half-man half-god had nothing but contempt for Bryce and viewed humanity as little more than sheep. “Then we make it about them, whoever’s left,” Bryce said. “We have to sell them on the idea that a vaccine is the only way they’ll live.”
“That won’t work. The decision makers will be in a bunker somewhere. They’ll think they’re safe.”
“We’ll tell them that the disease is airborne, and it might be, for all we know.” It was half a lie and even that felt slimy.
Slimy was fine with Wilkes. “If they think Magnus has some way of targeting them, it might work. I wouldn’t put it past him to have his own missiles.” Wilkes grinned. “He’s got everything else.”
The others were filtering back and Bryce didn’t get an opportunity to ask what Wilkes meant by “everything else.” It sounded ominous.
“By twos,” Griff said. He had a black sheet pulled around his shoulders so that his head looked like it was floating in the darkness. “Wilkes and I in front. Victoria and Nichola in the middle. Bryce and Maddy have the rear. Keep your eyes up and out. If we keep quiet and we move quick, we’ll be there in no time.”
He didn’t wait for questions. Pulling his sheet up like a cowl, he started off down the alley, moving with a panther’s lithe grace. Next to him, Wilkes had a limping gait, making him look like a bear with a peg leg. The two women in front of Bryce were shadows, silent and crouched. The loudest of all of them was Maddy who was still fighting her stomach.
Still, she could barely be heard. Hammer-like explosions were making the smoke around them puff in and out so that it looked like the buildings were breathing.
“Maybe ya wants a little drink?” It was Sid Pitts. He had come staggering up from behind. His footfalls quiet compared to the explosions, his whiskey scent blown away from them by the gentle wind.
Startled, Bryce’s heart spazzed oddly in his chest at Sid’s words. He was half-turned with the hammer cocked, before he realized who it was. It was an effort to hide his look of disappointment at having the man following after them again like a stray dog that had been given a scratch behind the ears.
Sid took one look at the hammer and broke down laughing. By some miracle, he had managed to rebound and was back within the perfect range of inebriation.
Wilkes came rushing back. He pushed Nichola aside and stared down at Sid in anger. “Shut the fool up, and get him out of here.”
Inexplicably, Sid carried a pillow instead of a weapon, though in this case it came in handy as he laughed into it. “I sorry,” he said in between chortles, grinning merrily at Wilkes. “You jus’ look like a nun or one them burka A-rabs. It’s an improvement on being a Nazi”
“A Nazi?” Wilkes snarled.
With his bleary eyes and the pillow, Sid didn’t see the punch coming. Bryce saw it before it happened: the twitch in Wilkes’ eye, the gritting of his teeth, the slight drop in his left shoulder, the shift in his weight, and then the obvious balling of his fist.
Bryce was moving before Wilkes and caught his fist as he was cocking his elbow.
“Don’t,” Bryce said. “There’s no reason to hurt anyone over words.”
“Especially when they’re true,” Maddy added. “I’m just saying you scowl too much. You’re like the poster-boy for the patriarchy.”
Wilkes scowled all the harder right up until he yanked his fist
away. “You think I look like the poster-boy for the patriarchy? What about you two?” He turned on Victoria and Nichola. “You ladies think that, too?” They both shrugged, not wanting to answer honestly and be dragged into the argument. Wilkes grinned at the lack of a response. “You know what I say? Fuck the patriarchy. Equal rights for all. We’ve had men leading this whole time. I say it’s time for the women to step up.”
He bowed while making a sweeping gesture to the opening of the alley. “Go on. No more oppression, I promise. In fact, I apologize for oppressing you. And I apologize on behalf of my men. I’m sure they’d apologize themselves if they hadn’t died saving your whining asses.” He straightened and waited for someone to say or do something. No one budged.
Normally Maddy would’ve ripped into the man, but she felt stupid for having mentioned the patriarchy in the first place. It wasn’t the time or place—and probably wouldn’t be for years to come. She was sure that the apocalypse had turned many social issues on their heads. There probably wasn’t a racist left in the country. Skin color meant nothing when people were getting their faces chewed off.
Sexism, on the other hand, was reverting back a thousand years in front of her eyes, and it wasn’t all a bad thing. In a battle for their lives, people fell into two categories: the weak and the strong. Overwhelmingly, women fell into the first category. And it wasn’t just physically, either. In the last few days, the link between the physical and the mental had never been stronger. The correlation between physical strength and the outward displays of courage were so strong as to be taken as fact. The opposite was true as well. The more physically weak a person was, the more likely they would 1: show timidness in the face of threats, and 2: be a woman.
This didn’t mean women had no value or should be disregarded, it meant that for women to keep the respect they had fought so hard to garner, they would have to step up and fill niches that were valuable to the group or the society they were a part of.
Heroes of the Undead | Book 1 | The Culling Page 35
