The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  But still, she was human and so was he, and her achievements were impressive. A child in the outbreak, she had grown up strong. She was exactly the kind of person her people needed, which made him think again about Salle Coram, and the things she'd done to survive.

  He drove east, and gradually the ranks of the ocean grew thicker. He stopped for a time beneath a hickory tree on the edge of a field of wild rye grass and watched their bodies flow by. Some time around four they began to run, and he followed along in the Humvee, going off-road with a sense of raw excitement as they began to sprint. He rolled the windows down and cheered them on.

  Soon the mountain of bodies rose up in the distance, over the flat expanse of vineyards and rye. He drew closer through the fields, crushing grasses under his tires, and stopped half a mile away. It amazed him when he saw the tiny figure standing atop the mountain. With binoculars he confirmed it was Anna, lit by moonlight. She was shouting something, but he couldn't hear over the heavy stamp of the ocean's feet.

  He left the Humvee and walked with the flood until he heard. She was calling out his name.

  "Lucas! I'm coming!"

  "I'm here," he said quietly.

  * * *

  Mid-afternoon the next day the mountain collapsed.

  Lucas was lying on the Humvee roof, watching through binoculars and listening to the radio, when the mountain blew. The steep white sides began rushing down like lava. He stared for long seconds, unsure if it was just his imagination or a strange trick of the light. He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes, but when the blurring continued, the implications finally registered.

  It had to mean they'd hit the button and killed the demon. That was good, definitely good, but it also meant another three thousand people were dead, which made him sick. He didn't know what to feel. Moments later Jake's voice came through on the walkie, raised in celebration. He went to switch it off, feeling no desire to celebrate another mass killing, then came Anna's reply. Her words weren't clear at first but she sounded concerned. He listened more closely to her garbled, staticky shouts, until gunfire rang down the line, followed by screams, and at last some of Anna's words came through clearly.

  The polarity of the hydrogen line had changed. The ocean had turned. Lucas stood up and watched the ocean through his binoculars, washing out and encompassing one of the Humvees like ants swarming a spider. He watched as Ollie ran and was gathered in, and he saw the first splashes of blood that followed, painting the ocean's surface red.

  Jake screamed. Anna shouted at him to run. There wasn't really time to think, only to react.

  Lucas jumped in the Humvee cab, revved the engine to life and set it tearing toward the disaster. Perhaps he could rescue some of them. Long grasses lashed the Humvee's hood as he climbed to thirty then forty and hit the edge of the field close to fifty. The vehicle tore through a wire fence with a series of damp firecracker POPs as rotten wooden poles yanked out of the ground. The Humvee hit the raised edge of a path, launched into the air and crashed down in the next field over like a charging bull. Lucas pressed the gas to the floor and tore ahead as more screams rang out through the radio and the terrible realization sank in that the zombies really were attacking.

  He caught glimpses of the gray mountain ahead through the heavily laden vines, sweating out bodies with a rhythmic pulse, until with one sudden pulsing gust it fully collapsed. A great whuff of dust blew out and reached him in seconds, washing over his windshield like the shockwave from a nuclear blast.

  "Jake!" he cried into the walkie as the Humvee skidded in the gray fog. "Where are you, are you in the Humvee?"

  No answer came other than static and the whipping rush of vines, until seconds later the curtain of dust pulled away and he plowed right into the tide of surging white bodies.

  THUD THUD THUD

  Bodies crumpled on his fender and ripped across the windshield as his mass and speed burrowed the Humvee deep into their tight ranks. His head hammered off the steering wheel, sending stars shooting across his vision and blood spurting brightly onto the dash. He blinked hard and held a hand to his forehead to staunch the bleeding, while the vehicle rolled to a dead stop in the midst of the ocean.

  "What the f-" he mumbled, then the Humvee started to rock.

  Their bodies were everywhere, an unstoppable flow of flesh that moved and pushed and couldn't be stopped. They crushed against the Humvee and it tipped sideways on the right-side wheels before dropping back to earth with a SLAM. He hammered the gas but there was nowhere to move and half his wheels were aloft again, lifting higher than the last time, only to slam back harder to earth.

  tip SLAM

  tip SLAM

  tip SLAM

  "Shit shit shit," he shouted and looked frantically at the wheel and the dash but there was nothing there to help him. He scanned the back but all he saw were bodies pressed to the bulletproof glass; no weapons in the trunk, only scientific supplies.

  SLAM

  It was a big one and it banged his head again off the wheel, followed by another that tipped so high there was no coming back. His stomach lurched, he gripped the wheel hard to brace himself, and SLAM.

  The vehicle toppled onto its side, throwing Lucas hard against the driver's side window, leaving a bloody smudge on the glass. He felt dizzy and now there was a rending, metal-tearing sound coming from the Humvee's undercarriage, mixing in with the desperate roar of the engine.

  His foot was still on the gas. He let go but the roar of the engine didn't stop, and now bodies were pouring over the top of the vehicle and leaping down beyond, and the Humvee was starting to rock again. The engine roared on and the tearing sound continued beneath his feet and then-

  SLAM

  It tipped over onto the roof. Lucas was dumped onto his head to roll limply across the ceiling. The engine became a backfiring cough and the scrabbling sound of feet stamping into the vehicle's underside above grew thunderous. He smelled gasoline and the terrible stink of burning rubber and knew he had to get out. He tried to right himself but just then the Humvee began to spin.

  Lucas hunkered on all fours on the ceiling, hardly believing it as the swollen mass of bodies pushed his vehicle round on its rooftop axis like a turnstile. Through the muddy, bloody windshield the world rotated, driven by bony legs and receding backs then-

  CRNNK

  Something in the engine burst, and there was a distinct smell of gas followed by an explosion that flattened him to the floor. His head beat off the reinforced metal roof and when he managed to lift it there was fire everywhere.

  The ocean was aflame outside. All around there was fire, running in liquid rivulets through the churned mud, leaping from dry zombie body to body, and now he felt the heat as two drops of burning gasoline leaked through the broken chassis above and sizzled on his hand.

  He screamed, clapped his palm into his armpit to douse the flame, then kicked at the driver side door. The lock held and he kicked it again unthinking, allowing more drops of flaming oil to fall on his head and thigh. He yelled again, patted them down wildly, and rolled to the door to frantically pick at the lock.

  It clicked, the door yawed open, and he rolled into a mad tornado whirl of fire, mud, bodies and thumping feet. He slipped and scrabbled for purchase in the churn, then the rear end of the Humvee struck him hard in the hip as it revolved, throwing him into a mass of zombies side-on.

  Their arms rained off him and he rolled wildly amongst their feet, almost pitching into a burning puddle of gas.

  CRAKKK

  The guts of the Humvee blew upwards behind him, sending burning bits of shrapnel metal raining down on the bodies above. He crawled amongst them on the floor, and their feet kicked him from all sides and their hands pattered off his shoulders and face, until one more huge CRKKK finished off the Humvee. Knocked onto his side he saw it burst outward like a bomb, felling a swathe of the ocean around it, who dropped to the floor and went up in flames.

  "Arrghhh!" he cried out and rolled to his feet. He hadn't
come this far to die here. He hadn't come this far to let the ocean be taken from him just as he was getting ready to cure it.

  The flow of the ocean to his right was thinner, broken by the Humvee's blast, and he forced his way into it, tossing elbows and pushing bodies to either side before they could pull him down. If only he could get out and find the other Humvees, maybe he could still salvage something from this. Jake might be alive, Wanda too, Macy. Anna was down below, perhaps they were safe in the bunker.

  He ducked and rolled through the forest of straining hands, no longer certain which way he was moving but moving fast. His fists and elbows throbbed already from impacting with hard bone and his legs shook from the effort of seeking purchase in the slick of mud and ash. Gritty black smeared him everywhere.

  Then he staggered into a circular clearing, through a fold in the storm-tossed bulk of the ocean, and there dropped to his knees. It was like an island, surrounded by a solid wall of impenetrable gray flesh, but all he saw was the thing in the middle. It wasn't possible, but there it was and here he'd been dumped before it like trash deposited by a wave. It wasn't fair, but Farsan was gone and how was that fair? Nothing was fair and that was just life, just the way life went, and this was his.

  Shaking on his knees, he watched the last few bodies peel away like gray skin from the raw, bloody muscle of the demon at the bottom of the heap.

  It was huge. It was powerful. It rose from a crouch, opened its eyes, and stared like the fires of hell right through Lucas' soul.

  18. THE DEAD

  Out of darkness hands were dragging her back and there was a-

  BANG

  of gunfire echoing madly in the contained space, and-

  BANG

  with shouting as the plain gray ceiling slid by like the cool surface of the becalmed Atlantic, but she wasn't at sea now, she was in the thick of the ocean, kicking at the corrugated gantry grating as it rasped along her back while somebody pulled her away.

  "Keep them there," somebody shouted. "I'll try and get this door closed!"

  Her vision was foggy, it was so dark in here, and there was a steady-

  CRUNCH

  CRACK

  THUMP

  of bodies tumbling down the shaft, interspersed with BANGs and shouting and the stink of cordite in the air.

  "I'm all right," she shouted, and the words echoed back to her as if underwater. Somebody let go of her wrist and fired a shotgun from the hip, just above her head, driving the blast deep into her ears and making her head ring.

  "Not the door!" she shouted and tried to get up, but there was something wrong with her back and she almost blacked out with a grunt. She flattened back on the metal flooring and instead twisted her head to the side, where two sets of Feargals, or was that Feargal and Cerulean, were prying at the recessed blast door. Peters stood over her with his shotgun smoking, fumbling two new cartridges into the open breach, and here came the ocean.

  CRUNCH

  CRACK

  THUMP

  They fell down the elevator shaft like dirty gray snowballs, limbs windmilling wildly and snapping on impact, dry brains dashing out like drought-dust, then rising, always rising. They were a tide and the flood had come.

  "Feargal," she shouted, dizzy. "Give up, it won't open. We have to-"

  The Feargal that was Feargal turned to look at her just as the nausea doubled her over and she vomited to the side. The Feargal that was Cerulean kept working.

  "What's she talking about?" Feargal shouted, as Peters went-

  BANG

  BOOM

  and three zombies toppled with their heads blown clear away, like seed pods split by the wind. Their bodies crumpled onto a heap already several skinny corpses deep, but not nearly deep enough as they kept coming faster.

  Anna spat and slurred. She tried to spin the map of the bunker in her head, figuring out where best they should go, but all she'd seen were the dormitories and one radar room, and even now her head was spinning already.

  "It's a trap," she managed. "Peters tell him. It's a set up. We can't stay here."

  "What?"

  She sagged back.

  "She's right," Peters said. "You will not move that door. We have to go inside. To the radar room."

  A body leaped over the growing pile of its fellows, eyes burning a bright, traitorous white, then Feargal shouldered into it and it hurtled over the walkway railing, crunching off two railings on the way down.

  "The radar room's no better than here," Feargal said as he bent to scoop up Anna. Peters fired again but still the ocean lapped closer.

  "Not the-" Anna managed, then almost blacked out again as Feargal's grip shifted under her lower back as he lifted her. Something was seriously wrong. "There's a-" she vomited to the side.

  "Go!" Peters cried, and Feargal ran, but every jolt of his footfalls made the nausea in her back worse. Something essential was broken back there. How far had she fallen? Clang clang clang went his boots off the stairs, then they were on the square gantry and running for the corridor.

  "Wait," Anna gasped, pushing up briefly from the pain. "Use the-"

  "We don't have time, Anna," Peters replied as he booted open the door. Feargal turned to edge her sidewise through and she got a clear view back of the ocean pouring in through the open door, their white bodies surging like froth, their bald heads glinting in the dying lights.

  This was the end. The ocean would rise up and drown them all, and this would be her epitaph.

  HERE ANNA FAILED

  SHE LOST HER FATHERS

  SHE LOST HER LOVE

  SHE LOST HER ARMY

  SHE NEVER STOOD A CHANCE

  She saw the words scroll across her vision written in leaping gray bodies and glowing white eyes that she'd once gazed into so happily. There was no escape this way; open doorways and bunk beds, it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough.

  The door closed behind her and she croaked again.

  "Feargal, stop!"

  "I can't, Anna, I-"

  With a lurch that almost blacked her out again, she flung herself out of his arms, bouncing off his knees and striking the hard metal flooring with a crack that made her yelp.

  "What are you doing?" Feargal said, panicked now and desperate as he knelt to scoop her back up. "Anna, please."

  "RPG," she managed to say, patting his back. "Rocket, stairs. Just do it."

  His eyes stared blankly, then Peters was hauling him up.

  "Come on!"

  They left her there and pushed back through the swing doors. Anna saw the ocean already streaming round the gantry, arms out and mouths wide, and Peters threw himself into the thick of them wielding the shotgun like a club, then the door closed.

  Seconds passed. There were thumps and two trembling shotgun BOOMs, somebody screaming, then-

  BOOM

  a huge blast wave blew open the doors and washed over her face as a fireball erupted in the middle of the stairwell. Time seemed to pause and she picked out everything: Feargal kneeling with Ollie's RPG tube on his shoulder, silhouetted against the flames; Peters near the edge of the blast with his shotgun raised high: in the midst of the explosion bodies curling and flying, with metal twisting and orange blooms unfolding like petals in the air.

  Then time sped up and bodies smashed off walls and the fireball blinked out like an eye, replaced by a burning white afterimage that hung in the air, superimposed over two halves of the mangled stairwell, now glowing red-hot.

  "Help!" came a cry from Peters, on his knees now and wrestling with three gray monsters. Feargal charged over wielding the RPG tube like a pile driver, then the doors swung closed again.

  Anna lay back and panted. Sweat drenched her chest and she tried to stand again but the darkness knocked her flat. Through the doors came thumping sounds, and footfalls and unclear shouts. She drew her gun and aimed it at the door, arm quivering.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  It burst open and Peters
raced through, supporting a bloody Feargal around the chest. Behind them Anna saw the flood of zombies pouring off the edge of the ruptured stairwell, through the hole they'd blown and diving to concrete far down below like a furious white waterfall. Some made the leap though, getting tangled in the twisted metal of the stairwell, their skin hissing on the hot outer shreds of metal, but some of them freed themselves and came on.

  "Come on," Peters barked and grabbed her wrist, dragging her after him. With Feargal leaning on his one side, bleeding from what had to be bite marks in his arm and chest, and Anna on the other, trying to help by kicking herself along as he pulled, they staggered down the corridor.

  Seconds later the swing doors burst open and the first zombie raced through. Its chest steamed from fresh burns, its eyes seared, and Anna sighted down her pistol and fired. Three shots missed. The fourth struck its chest and slowed it for a second, while the fifth punched through its dry throat.

  It dropped to the floor, but another followed.

  "Get us in!" Anna shouted, unloading six more bullets before finding the throat.

  Peters pushed Feargal through the nearest open doorway, dragged Anna too, then dumped them both and seized one of the bunk beds, trying to pull it away, but it didn't budge.

  "Shit!"

  Anna lay on the floor by the base and couldn't help but laugh. Even in the shadows it was clear.

  "They're welded down," she said.

  Peters moved to a locker and tried it too, but it was just the same. Anna laughed harder. They'd prepared all right. Their radar bunker was a death trap, and in it she was going to die. Peters glared at her then at Feargal, lying on his back and mumbling something while blood poured from a wound in his chest.

  "Do something for him or he'll die," he snapped, then kicked a zombie in the chest.

  Anna hadn't even seen it coming, though it was right above her. She tried to raise her gun but Peters was already in the way, hammering the barrel of his shotgun into the zombie's face as it staggered back, cutting double-ringed grooves in its dry peanut head. It fell through the open door and Peters jumped after it into the corridor, stamping on its neck twice before a second zombie collided with him bodily and drove him off to the side.