by Brant, Jason
His ears seemed to take the brunt of the damage.
“You okay?” he asked Cass as he scrambled off her.
“Other than you tackling me to the pavement like a linebacker, I’m fine.” Cass took his outstretched hand, pulled herself up.
Relief washed over Lance at the sound of her voice. The throbbing in his ears had him concerned he’d gone deaf again. He wasn’t about to jump in the air and click his heels together just yet, but at least he could hear.
Cass took in his blood-covered face.
Then she kissed him.
“Let’s move, dumbass.” She grabbed his forearm, pulling him in the opposite direction of Greg and Doc Brown. If they went after them, they’d have to cross the alley. She hollered over her shoulder. “We’ll meet you at The Light!”
“Fat chance, bitch.” Higgins’ voice had moved much closer. “You’ll meet them in hell.”
Lance wasn’t sure if he’d stumbled into a war zone or a WWE pay-per-view.
There was way too much shit-talking going on.
Cass dragged him down the sidewalk before cutting across the street. They stopped in front of an oddball boutique clothing shop. The display windows were smashed, the clothed mannequins strewn about.
Hippie-looking outfits were crumbled on the floor. Beady jewelry and hemp bags hung from hooks on the walls.
They clambered over the ledge of the window, then hobbled into the store. Lance tried not to make too much noise as they picked their way over glass and fallen plaster. His foot accidentally kicked a mannequin, sending it into a fallen display stand covered in eccentric scarves.
Higgins continued to taunt them from the down the street.
Years of neglect and weather had aged the shop and its contents. Leaves, dirt, and fresh dust from the bomb blast covered everything. Most of the clothing was shredded, no doubt torn apart by rats using the fabric to build their nests.
Their footprints trailed them on the filthy floor, giving away their escape route.
Lance could only hope the Bandits were as dumb as they looked. With any luck, which they seemed to have run out of recently, the Bandits wouldn’t notice the set of prints winding through the shop.
Cass led them through the small space, exiting the shop via a closed side door. They entered a communal area for the entire building. As they’d climbed through the window, Lance hadn’t noticed how tiny the store was in comparison to the rest of the building.
Other shop doors led away from the open area, most of their glass construction surprisingly intact. Narrow stairs rose off to their left, mailboxes built into the wall at their base.
“There are apartments above us,” Cass whispered. “Maybe we can hide up there.”
Lance inspected their feet, noticed the floor wasn’t as filthy. Their footprints weren’t as obvious. The Bandits might not be able to track them from there.
He hurried over to a door with a sign on it for a sandwich shop.
Tested the knob.
Found it unlocked.
Went inside, propping the door open.
Lance leaned forward, letting blood drip from the tip of his nose to the floor. He walked several steps, dribbling a bloody path leading into the shop.
Then he grabbed his nose, stymieing the drizzle, and hurried back to Cass. “Let’s go.”
Cass gave him an approving nod. “Nice job, dumbass. That might actually fool them.”
“It won’t do us any good if they walk in here and find us standing around, shooting the breeze.” Lance gestured to the stairs with his free hand. “Get that sweet booty of yours moving. You go first so I can appreciate the view.”
As they ascended the stairs, sneaking along as best they could, Lance questioned what was wrong with them. Everything that could have gone sideways over the past few days had. They’d barely survived a bomb, a torrent of gunfire, and had armed lunatics chasing them, yet they were bantering with one another as if nothing had happened.
They were either so desensitized to violence it barely registered with them anymore, or they both had a few screws loose.
Considering the violence had tied his stomach in knots, he didn’t think he’d grown too accustomed to nutjobs chasing them with guns. So that only left the lunatic option.
They must have gone bat-shit crazy.
Anyone who had ever met Cass would probably agree with that.
Lance liked to think of himself as the voice of reason in their relationship. Then again, he’d just complimented her ass as they fled up the stairs to hide from rapists and murderers. He supposed they were two peas in a kooky pod after all.
Cass’ stride had a significant hitch in it as she ascended the steps. She barely managed to lift her foot over the lip of each stair, relying on the railing for help. The sole of her shoe dragged along the surface, leaving faint lines on the linoleum.
“Let me help you.” Lance took her upper arm in his hand, lifted some of her weight.
“Take the gun and cover our asses till we’re on the next floor.” Cass pulled free of his grip, handed the rifle over.
Lance paused on the first landing, aiming at the door to the hippie shop. Cass kept going, her face contorted from discomfort and exertion. Sweat ran down her forehead and cheeks, cutting lines through the gray mask covering her skin.
A man hollered from the street, but the muffled quality of the words made him impossible to understand. Lance couldn’t even tell if the Bandits had moved away from the alley or not. Maybe they’d gone after Greg and Doc Brown, rather than following Lance and Cass.
He hoped that wasn’t the case.
As damaged as they were, Lance knew he and Cass had a better chance of fighting off the biker-wannabe assholes than the other two.
They were armed—Doc and Greg weren’t.
Greg had been shot.
And Doc Brown wasn’t much of a fighter. He’d killed a man once, but that had haunted the big guy ever since. Lance wasn’t sure if the doc had it in him to do it again.
With any luck, someone from The Light would hear the gunfire and come looking, though Lance doubted it. When things got hairy in the city, Emily Snow ordered her people to batten down the hatches, protect their own.
That was a good idea for the most part, but it didn’t help Lance at the moment. If Higgins and his flunkies chased them through the hippie shop, then maybe Emmett and Greg could circle around to The Light. Hopefully, they could get there soon, because the last time Lance had seen Greg a concerning amount of blood had soaked through his shirt.
“There are four apartment doors up here.” Cass disappeared as she entered the second floor, shambling down a dark hallway.
“See if any are unlocked,” Lance whispered. “I’ll keep watch.”
“One of them is already open. Get up here.”
“Yes, Sassy.” Lance took the stairs two at a time, but he stopped at the top when he heard broken glass crunching below.
Someone had entered through the window of the boutique shop.
Creeping as silently as possible, Lance headed down the hall, barely able to see his wife as she entered the second door on the right. Though a window was at the end of the hall, the amount of crap floating in the air had blotted out much of the daylight. It looked more like late evening than midday outside.
“The footprints lead in here,” a gruff voice called out from below. “Dumb fucks are leaving us a trail.”
Lance tiptoed past three closed doors, reached the open one. The inside of the apartment had more light than the hallway because of three large windows on the left wall. They illuminated a ransacked apartment. Overturned furniture covered the floor of a small living room. Someone had strewn about the couch cushions and tipped over a coffee table.
A kitchenette opposite the windows had broken plates and glasses on the countertops. The fridge door stood ajar, shriveled food on the shelves.
Easing inside, Lance pondered closing the door behind him. Leaving it open would make it pretty obvious as
to which apartment they were in, but he feared the hinges might squeal if he tried to push it closed. The door hadn’t moved in years.
As he reached for the handle, still contemplating what to do, he heard their pursuer kicking mannequins and jewelry racks out of his way.
“Who would buy this shit?” the man said.
Lance was shocked at how clearly he could hear the Bandit speak. Whoever had lived in these apartments must have hated it. The walls were as soundproofed as papier-mâché construction. They could have heard a mouse fart from two floors away.
Hearing them also meant his ears were functioning again.
“Dick-suckin’ hippies,” another man said, his voice higher and nasal. He had a Western Pennsylvania drawl Lance recognized. It wasn’t quite the Yinzer speak he’d known from Pittsburgh, and Paul, but something found if one ventured out into the mountains. “Latte-sippin’, Birkenstock-wearin’, dick-suckin’ hippies. I used to beat the shit outta a few of ‘em in the clink. Dumb fucks was in there for fire-bombin’ some fur coat factory down in—”
“Shut the fuck up, Earl. It was a rhetorical question.”
The lumbering below them stopped.
“What does rate… rite… what does that mean?” the nasally Bandit asked.
“It means you’re a dumb fuck who needs to shut up so we can hear. That bitch and her cuck might be close by.”
“I was just sayin’ that—”
“Shut up! Jesus the fuckin’ Christ, Earl. You want me to tell Higgins the bitch got away because you couldn’t keep your damn motor-mouth from running for ten seconds? You know how much of a hard-on he’s got for her.”
“You wouldn’t tell him that, would ya, Joe Bob?”
Their bickering continued as Lance searched for Cass behind him in the living room. She’d crouched behind the overturned couch, peering over the top. Her mouth twisted in a disbelieving smile as they listened to the idiots beneath them argue. Lance returned the grin, even as his heart shifted gears, accelerating in his chest. If the men in the shop followed them upstairs, they would have to fight for their lives.
But hearing their names were Earl and Joe Bob was just too damned funny.
Lance decided against closing the door, afraid the redneck twins might hear him. He sneaked toward the couch, crouched beside Cass. A broken table leg was wedged under the backside, a screw sticking out of the wood at one end. Carefully, he lifted the couch up a few inches and slid the leg out.
It had a decent heft to it, even though it was made from some kind of composite material that wasn’t as sturdy as solid wood. He figured he could do a decent amount of damage with it if he hit ol’ Joe Bob upside the head.
The redneck twins’ footsteps approached the communal area at the bottom of the stairs.
Cass tensed beside him, her hands kneading her rifle.
“Well, shit,” Joe Bob said.
“Which way you think they went?” Earl asked.
“How the fuck do I know? I wouldn’t have said, ‘Well, shit,’ if I knew that, now would I?”
“I were just—”
“Go check the upstairs while I poke around down here. And keep your goddamn mouth closed while you do it. We don’t need them hearing us sneaking up on them. You feel me?”
“Yeah, I feel ya.”
“Don’t say that. Sounds homo. And you remember what Higgins said about the bitch, right?” Joe Bob asked.
“Don’t kill her, don’t kill her, don’t kill her. He only said it ‘bout fifty times. I ain’t a retard.”
“Whatever you say, Corky. Now get your ass upstairs. Looks like there are a few apartments up there. Don’t let them get the drop on you.”
“Who’s Corky, Joe Bob?”
Lance grimaced at the mention of the apartments. Earl the Genius would head straight for the open door first. They’d have to take him out before Joe Bob the Vulgar could climb up the stairs. Once they went after Earl, he figured they’d only have ten or fifteen seconds before Joe Bob could get there.
He rotated the table leg in his hand, so the screw faced away from him. If he could catch Earl in the neck, it might take him out with one blow.
Cass rested the rifle on the couch, aiming at the door.
“Just get up the fucking the stairs!” Joe Bob said. “Who’s Corky? What, your momma was too poor to have a TV?”
“All right. You’re damn grumpy for a man who just got laid this mornin’. And no one ever heard of no show called Corky.”
Lance heard Earl’s feet hit the stairs.
“Hold on,” Joe Bob said. “There’s some blood over here in the doorway. Looks like they went this way.”
“You want I should check the apartments anyway? Just in case?”
“Did you hear what I just said? They went this way.”
“Yeah, but—”
Lance exhaled quietly as he heard Earl hop off the staircase and follow Joe Bob through the sandwich shop. The tension in his shoulders ebbed. His grip on the table leg loosened, letting blood flow into his fingers. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d squeezed it.
More glass and dust fell from his long hair as he shifted his weight. Blood dribbled to the ruined carpet. Cass put a hand on his forearm, getting his attention. He looked over, taking in her ashen appearance.
“We’re being hunted down by two morons named Joe Bob and Earl.” Cass’ lip quivered as she held in laughter. “They might be the dumbest people ever.”
Lance grinned. “Maybe that’s Joe Bob Briggs down there. We might be able to reason with him. He didn’t seem so bad in back in the day.”
“Who’s Joe Bob Briggs?”
Lance’s grin melted. “What?”
“Oh God.” Cass rolled her eyes and stood, her back cracking. “Is this another one of your stupid pop-culture references?”
“Yeah, but it might be my best one yet.”
“That wouldn’t be too hard to do, considering how terrible the rest have been.”
“You really don’t know who Joe Bob Briggs is?”
“No. And I don’t care.”
“MonsterVision ring a bell? The dude hosted horror movies on TNT in the nineties.”
“Nope.” Cass started for the door. “You must have missed the part where I said I don’t care.”
“He used to talk about how many boobs were in each movie and—”
“Hello up there!” Joe Bob yelled from down the stairs. “Nice little trick you pulled with that blood. It almost worked.”
“Almost,” Earl agreed. “But we ain’t so stupid as that.”
Lance’s stomach tightened.
Cass stopped midstep.
“Come on down here and we won’t hurt you,” Joe Bob said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
When neither answered for several seconds, the men at the bottom of the stairs started their ascent. Their heavy footfalls echoed up the staircase, down the hall.
“We gonna have to get ‘em.” Earl let out a wheezy, rattling laugh. “Gonna have me some fun.”
“I guess we’re going to find out if that’s Joe Bob Briggs after all,” Lance whispered.
“I don’t know who’s more annoying—you or them.” Cass glared for a moment before turning her attention to the door. “We’re almost out of ammo.”
“Look at the bright side,” Lance said, holding up his sad weapon. “At least I have a table leg to fight them off with.”
12
His lungs heaving, muscles burning, Emmett dragged Greg toward the massive building. Greg’s blood dripped everywhere, their clothes and skin sticky and wet.
A biting wind cut through the city, blowing away dust, pricking exposed flesh. Neither wore a coat, making the chill of the day that much worse. Emmett worried about the amount of Greg’s blood loss, particularly with the cold.
His body would struggle to regulate its temperature if he didn’t get him out of the elements soon. There wasn’t enough time to get him to The Light. Emmett had to work on his wound now.
<
br /> The tracks trailing behind them had lessened as the wind picked up. They’d traveled two blocks, maybe three, since they’d split off from Lance and Cass. Emmett had wanted to circle back, to see if he could intercept his friends, but feared the men chasing them would cut them off first.
Jeering voices had trailed them the entire time. They hadn’t caught sight of their pursuers yet, but heard them closing in. The voices grew louder with almost every step. Neither Greg nor Emmett was armed, and they both knew what would happen if they were caught.
Greg had fallen in and out of consciousness since being shot. The bullet had punctured his shoulder—a wound that never seemed that serious in the movies, but would likely kill Greg if it wasn’t tended to soon.
The way Greg’s arm dangled now, swaying by his side regardless of his state of consciousness, concerned Emmett more than anything else. The possible bone and nerve damage could prove devastating.
Assuming he didn’t bleed to death during Emmett’s meandering escape attempt through the city.
Glass walls rose toward the sky in front, covering the two sides of a massive building. Emmett guided them across the street, heading straight for it. Several windows were destroyed, now just fragments of glass on the sidewalk, but a surprising amount remained intact.
The dozen or so stairs leading up to a bank of doors were chipped and cracked. Empty brass casings littered the steps and the sidewalk lining the street.
A massive gunfight had happened there, though Emmett couldn’t tell how old the spent casings were. He wondered what had occurred in Baltimore during the fall of humanity. Had the military moved in as it had in Pittsburgh?
Did Baltimore put up more of a fight than its rival city in the north?
He doubted it.
All those years ago, no one had been prepared for how quickly everything had spiraled into madness. The military had arrived before the end, but they’d barely slowed the spread of the infection. None of the soldiers were ready for the monstrosities that had climbed out of the sewers and storm drains just a few nights later.
