Last Man Standing Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Taylor, Keith

  “Come on, Geoff,” pleads Lewis. “Don’t go starting something you’ll regret.”

  Geoff ignores him. “This guy... he was my neighbor. We came in together. He saved my life more times than I can remember, and you know what I had to do a half hour ago? Can you guess? Go on, take a wild guess.” He’s right up in Vee’s face now, pressing her back against the wall, his spittle showering her face as he angrily spits out his words.

  “Geoff, fucking leave it,” Lewis insists, but Geoff looks as if he doesn’t even hear him.

  “I had to put a bullet in his head when he tried to claw out my eyes. I had to watch him get attacked by five of those psychos, and then I had to watch him stand right back up and join in fighting for the other team. You ever had to watch a friend die?” Vee keeps her eyes locked on him. “You ever seen the light go out in your buddy’s eyes as they bleed to death?” She stays silent. “I guess that’s a no. Well, let’s see how you like it, bitch.”

  In one smooth movement he spins on his heel, grabs Warren by the collar, reaches down to a sheath on his thigh and pulls out a large serrated hunting knife. Everything seems to slow down as the blade moves towards Warren’s stomach, and my mind kicks into overdrive. I can see that Lewis won’t be able to bring the rifle around quickly enough. I know Vee won’t be able to wrestle him away before he manages to plunge the knife in. Almost without the thought passing through my conscious mind I know that I’m the only one of us in a position to do anything, and my body starts to move without any sort of input from a mind that would no doubt prefer to turn and run if it had the chance to cast the deciding vote.

  I feel myself leaping forward, and I watch almost as a spectator as I tuck my head against my chest and meet Geoff’s waist shoulder first. He outweighs me by maybe thirty pounds but I catch him off balance on his left side as he swings the knife in from the right, and as soon as I barrel into him I feel his legs give way beneath him.

  We both fall to the carpet, and my suddenly heightened senses pick up the movement of the blade as it twists in to face Geoff as he tumbles. The moment we hit the deck I feel the resistance beneath me as the hilt anchors itself on the ground and the tip of the blade slips through his skin and grinds against the bone as it finds the narrow gap between two ribs.

  I roll away quickly, desperate to put myself beyond arm’s reach just in case I’m wrong. Just in case I only imagined the knife piercing Geoff’s body, and just in case he’s ready to turn it on me. I roll onto my front and scrabble at the thin, scratchy carpet for purchase, and I don’t stop crawling until I know I’m well out of reach.

  I can barely hear anything above the thumping of my own heart, but one noise that manages to drown out the din is the sound of rasping breath. It sounds just like the labored breath of the infected, but this sound is coming from just a few yards away.

  I turn back towards Geoff and understand right away. The long hunting knife is buried halfway to the hilt in his chest, jutting out at an angle where it slipped between the ribs and punctured the soft tissue of his lung. He lies on his back and desperately struggles for air, gasping as his face turns pink, but I can see that whatever oxygen he manages to gulp in won’t go where it’s needed. Around the blade the blood bubbles as air escapes through the wound, deflating his lung much more quickly than he can gulp mouthfuls of air. He grits his teeth against the pain, and his eyes cast around desperately for someone who might help him. Nobody moves.

  Once again the guilt grips me as I watch him gasp and struggle. I know I did what I had to do, but I know just as strongly that I’m responsible for his pain. I’m responsible for the terror in his eyes, and the knowledge that’s he’s about to die. The guilt hits me hard for a moment, and I almost find myself rushing back to help him until I remind myself once again of the room upstairs. The room he must have visited many times. It’s not enough to rid myself of this feeling entirely, but it takes the edge off.

  I watch as Warren crouches over the gasping man, kneels on both his arms to keep him from struggling, clamps a hand over his mouth and pulls the knife from his chest, and I turn away just in time so I don’t have to see him draw the blade smoothly across Geoff’s throat to put him out of his misery. All I hear is a soft, muffled whimper as the man fades away, and I don’t turn back until I can no longer hear his feet kicking weakly against the carpet.

  “Thanks, Tom,” Warren sighs, pulling himself to his feet. “I owe you one.” His hands are covered in blood, and he leans back down to wipe them clean on Geoff’s shirt.

  I wave it off, and after a few half hearted mumbles I manage to squeeze a few words through my suddenly parched throat. “I think that makes us even. Umm, should we...?” I nod at the two bodies bleeding into the carpet and point at an open suite door to the side of the hallway.

  Between the four of us we manage to drag them both into the empty suite, where Warren pats down Geoff’s body until he finds the pistol in his shoulder holster. Vee takes the knife, unclips the sheath from Geoff’s thigh and, after cleaning his blood from the blade as best she can, tucks it inside her jacket.

  “Y’know, that was pretty damned brave,” Vee says, patting me on the shoulder as we return to the staircase and begin to climb. “It takes a lot of guts to take on a guy that size.”

  I flash a weak smile and try to stop my hands from trembling. “Thanks. I don’t feel all that brave.” I can still remember how Geoff’s fall slowed beneath me as the knife blade slid into him, and I reflexively reach up to my own chest as a shiver passes through me.

  I never expected this. I’ve shot infected before. Hell, I shot Bishop in the head while he was still alive, but even that horror didn’t feel all that immediate, and it was nowhere near as visceral. I squeezed the trigger, a reaction was set off, the bullet was ejected and somewhere off in the distance death happened. It’s easy to rationalize it; to distance myself from the act and pretend I was just a small part of the process. This, though... this feels different. I tackled Geoff, he fell on his knife and I felt the blade slide into his body. I may not have been holding it in my hand but it was my weight that forced it between his ribs and into his lung.

  I don’t regret it. If I had to do it again I hope I’d do the same thing. It’s just... well, I’m just glad Vee took the knife. I don’t want it anywhere near me.

  I try to get my breathing under control as we climb the stairs, and as I ascend I bury my hands in my pockets so nobody sees how much they’re shaking. My heart rate only grows quicker as we approach the fourth floor. I know there will be more death to come, and the thought of it makes me want to puke. I just want to be somewhere safe, just for an hour or two. Somewhere I can close my eyes and pretend the world hasn’t gone to shit. I wish–

  “OK, hold up,” Lewis interrupts my train of thought. “I gotta tie you up again.” Vee begins to protest and Lewis holds up his hand. “I know, I know, but we need to get in close. There are a couple dozen innocent women in 406, remember? If we go in guns blazing they’ll all end up dead. We gotta be smart about this, OK?” Vee scowls for a moment, then holds her wrists together and allows Lewis to cinch the cable tie around them before moving onto Warren and me.

  “OK, you can reach your guns, but try as hard as shit not to until you have a clear shot, OK? The Chief will be armed, and if you don’t take him out with your first shot you won’t get the chance at a second. Trust me.” He gives us a final once over, straightening our clothes so the bulges of our guns aren’t visible at our waists. “You guys good to go?”

  Vee and Warren nod right away, followed moments later by my own weak agreement, and we proceed up the final few steps to the fourth floor hallway. It’s empty of men but for a body way off at the far end, and as Lewis steps to the front of the group we can only hear our own soft footsteps on the carpet as we approach 406.

  “Chief?” Lewis calls out as he taps on the door to the suite. “I’m coming in.”

  As he reaches down to the handle the door suddenly swings open, and Lewis ta
kes a step back as Laurence pops his head out. “Is it just you?” he asks, his eyes darting from side to side to scan the hallway. Lewis nods. “OK, bring ‘em in.”

  Laurence steps back inside the room and swings the door wide open to allow us in, and the sight that greets me makes my stomach turn.

  Ranged around the walls of the large suite lie a couple dozen stained single beds, each of them separated by makeshift rails on which hang bloodstained white plastic curtains. As we walk deeper into the room each bed reveals a new scene of carnage, and my eyes flit from one to the next despite my wish to close them tight to block out the horror.

  The women are all shackled to a single rope hanging at waist height around the wall, connected by the same plastic cable ties that bind our own hands. A handful are obviously dead, but the rest hiss at us as we pass, struggling to break free of the rope as they try to lunge at us.

  I reluctantly step further into the room and almost gag when I see one particular infected woman on the left side of the room. She’s writhing on the bed, twisting back and forth, her skin red raw at the wrists where she yanks at the cable tie, but that’s far from her worst injury. With each jerking motion the intestines spilling from her belly twitch and roll across the bed, draped across the bloodstained mattress as if she’s the subject of a gruesome anatomy class. Laurence strolls past her without interest as the bile rises in my throat, and I can’t help but double over and puke on the carpet as the smell hits me. My diaphragm spasms as the vomit splashes on the floor, and I lean against the corner of the bed just inches from the feet of the woman as I continue to puke.

  I don’t even notice what’s happening until it’s too late. Laurence reaches the window and turns back towards me, and through blurred, watering eyes I can see a look of confused surprise on his face. Behind me I hear Lewis gasp, and as I turn towards him I see him lift Warren’s rifle. I spin around again, and now I see Laurence throw himself behind the cover of the bed by the window as Lewis opens fire, and the glass in one of the windows explodes out in a million shards as his wild shot misses its mark.

  My eyes clear, and as I look down I see it on the floor. It’s my gun. I didn’t even feel it slipping from my waistband as I leaned over to puke.

  I gave the fucking game away.

  Without another thought I drop myself to the ground and shuffle behind the nearest bed, where Warren and Vee are already crouched in the small space. Vee awkwardly reaches into her jacket and pulls out the knife, and Warren and I hold out our hands so she can slice the ties with the serrated blade.

  “Real smooth, Tom,” Vee scolds as Warren takes the knife and cuts her tie. The shower curtain above us balloons out as a shot punches through it. “Where’s Lewis?” she demands, ducking as another shot bursts through the curtain and buries itself in the wall above.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and look around, flinching when I see I’m just inches from the spilled intestines of the woman in the bed above us. She strains in her effort to break free, and a cold, fleshy tube flicks against my cheek. I almost jump out from behind the cover of the bed, but somehow manage to stop myself at its foot.

  That’s when I see Lewis.

  ΅

  :::9:::

  WHAT A FUCKING disaster.

  Lewis kicks at the grasping hands clawing at his feet as he climbs up onto the bed. He knows his boots are more than thick enough to keep him protected, but it doesn’t stop the shiver running down his spine as he feels the fingers scratching at the leather.

  He steps up and grabs at the closest rail until he’s balanced on the rope running around the wall. Already he’s regretting the plan he hatched in the few moments he had to think. With his hands stretched above him he grips the flimsy frames from which the shower curtains hang, and painfully slowly he makes his way across the beds towards the window as the guys draw the Chief’s fire towards their side of the room.

  He can’t see much from up here, lost in the rows of white, and all he can do is pray the Chief will stay over by the window until he can reach him. He’s desperate to shout out to Vee and Warren to provide a little fire to pin him down, but he knows he can’t give away his position. All he can do is put one foot carefully in front of the other.

  A hand reaches up and grabs at the laces of his left boot, and as he pulls away the knot comes untied and hangs down, well within reach of the infected women. With the next step he feels the oversized boot loosen on his foot, and with horror he feels it begin to slip off with another.

  Fuck. What am I gonna do now?

  The rope hangs tight against the wall, but beneath his weight there’s still far more slack than he’d like. It bows down towards the infected and allows them much more freedom of movement, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before one of them manages to twist around and raise herself within biting distance. He can’t afford to take the time to retie his boot, and even if he could he’d never be able to keep his balance.

  Oh well, fuck it. Only a couple more beds.

  With the next step the infected woman beneath him tugs at his dangling laces and pulls the boot from his foot. For a second or two it hangs on his toe, and moments before it falls he takes the opportunity to do some damage. With careful balance he drives his foot down into the woman’s face with enough force to send her reeling, and he quickly slips past her and pushes his way past the next curtain.

  Finally he hears shots coming from the direction of the guys, and a shuffling sound from behind the next curtain tells him that the Chief has retreated behind the bed.

  “You know you can’t escape, right?” yells Warren. “You got nowhere to go, you son of a bitch. Why don’t you just give it up?”

  Yeah, that’s right, thinks Lewis. Keep making noise. He’s been around the Chief long enough to know he’ll fight to the last round, but he’s thankful for the distraction all the same. Just a few more steps now.

  “Son, I hope you have plenty of ammo,” the Chief replies, laughing manically. “The second you get off your last shot I’m gonna feed all of you to these bitches feet first.”

  Lewis balances carefully on the rope, thankful that the woman in the next bed is already dead. Her hands hang loosely from the rope, and as he passes over her he quietly lowers himself to the ground, praying that he isn’t visible through the curtain that separates him from the Chief.

  With great care he peeks behind the white curtain and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that the final bed is empty. He can’t quite see the Chief, but he can hear from his quick, shallow breathing that he’s hiding somewhere at the foot of the bed. Slowly, deliberately he reaches to his hip and pulls out his pistol, draws back the slide and...

  Oh, fuck.

  He releases the clip, praying with all his might as he slides it out, but his worst fears are confirmed. He’s empty.

  Another few shots come from the other end of the room, and for a moment he wonders if it might be better just to sit tight and wait for the guys to make a move, but it only takes a moment to abandon that idea. His first rifle shot through the window would surely have alerted the guards outside that something was going on. If they’re lucky they have just a few minutes before the first of them arrive.

  Lewis returns his gun to its holster, reaches to his belt and pulls out the telescopic nightstick he was issued at Camp One. It’s only a lightweight thing, designed more to menace than to injure, but it might be enough to give him the edge. He slides it out to its full length and locks it into position, then carefully creeps to the wall and prepares to make his move.

  One breath.

  Two.

  Three.

  The Chief leans around the edge of the bed and squeezes off a shot, and Lewis pounces while he’s distracted. He pulls back the curtain, leaps across the bed in two steps and throws himself at the crouching man, barreling into him with all his weight. The Chief looks shocked, taken completely by surprise, and by the time he regroups Lewis has him pinned, his knee in hi
s back and his arms pinning the Chief’s, leaving him only able to point his pistol at the wall.

  “I got him!” he yells. “Cease fire!”

  It takes Lewis a moment to notice the girl as he holds the Chief firmly in place. Ahead of him, unseen until now, a young woman cowers between the bed and the window, her hands attached by cable tie to the end of the rope where it’s tied to a steel loop hammered into the wall. She stares out at him in terror, and it’s not until it’s too late that Lewis realizes her fear isn’t directed at him. It’s directed at the Chief’s gun, pointing straight at her.

  Lewis lunges for the pistol but it’s too late. The Chief squeezes the trigger. Lewis makes a grab for the gun, but the moment he releases the Chief’s arm the man beneath him manages to twist around despite his weight, throwing Lewis off. The gun spins around.

  The Chief squeezes again.

  ΅

  :::10:::

  “NO!”

  I’M JUST two beds away when the second shot rings out. The world once again falls into horrific slow motion, but this time I can’t move fast enough to do anything about it. Lewis, sprawled against the side of the bed, doubles over as the shot hits him. He looks more surprised than anything else. For a second or two I wonder if the shot missed, until the message finally reaches his brain and he slumps to the ground.

  Vee comes running past as I stand there in shock, my gun hanging loosely by my side, and I barely blink as she squeezes off two shots into Sergeant Laurence. The first strikes him in the shoulder, the impact forcing him to drop his gun to the ground. The second catches him in the neck, grazing by and sending him to the floor, clutching at the wound.

  “Warren, get Lewis out of here!” she yells, crouching down as she reaches Laurence and pressing the muzzle of her gun into his back. She pats him down until she finds a set of keys in his pants pocket, grabs them and tosses them to Warren. She looks up. “Oh Jesus... Tom? Take care of this one.”