The young man looks down at my outstretched hand then stares me down, glaring into my eyes as if he’s trying to look deep into my soul. For what feels like an awkward eternity I stare right back at him, until finally he takes a step back and seems to relax.
“Keep it.” He looks around at the soldiers surrounding us. “Lower your weapons, guys. It’s... it’s OK. We’re going to trust them. For now.”
None of us breathe until the soldiers begin to lower their rifles, and in the silence we hear nothing but the squawk of their radios. Jack reaches for his, unclips it from his belt and brings it to his mouth. “Private Barnes, I need a sit-rep on the Strip. Can you give us a safe route from McCarran to the Luxor?” He waits through fifteen seconds of silence, then tries again. “Barnes, report your position? Come back.”
Another ten seconds of silence, then the radio crackles to life. “That’s a negative, sir, you have no safe route. These things... Jesus, they came outta nowhere. The Strip’s fucking crawling. I have five men securing the entrances to the Luxor, but they’re low on ammo and we can’t hold this position for long. What are your orders, sir?”
Jack casts his eyes around the group, desperate for help, and holds the radio to his forehead as if he’s coming down with a sudden migraine. “Umm...” He holds down the transmit button. “Standby, Barnes.”
The response comes back immediately, the panic growing in the speaker’s voice by the second. “Sir, I need orders now. We have a swarm incoming from the south. What the fuck do you want us to do?”
Jack brings the radio back to his lips. “Ummm... OK, umm, hold... hold your current position, Private. We’ll be there as soon as–”
Vee steps smartly forward and snatches the radio from Jack’s hand, and before he can so much as flinch she’s speaking in a commanding tone. “Barnes, report your position.”
The voice comes back. “Who the hell is this? Put Benson back on, woman.”
Vee’s expression darkens, and despite the heat of the morning sun I swear the air suddenly chills by a few degrees. “This is Lieutenant Victoria Reyes, Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, US Army, and I’m assuming command of this operation. Now report your fucking position, Private!”
The Private’s response comes back meek as a kitten. “Yes, sir. I mean ma’am. I have two men at the north entrance, and me and two more are guarding the main entrance.”
“OK, now listen carefully. The infected respond to sound and movement. They don’t think. They don’t plan. They only attack when they’re triggered, so I need you to stop firing your weapons right now. Stop making sound, and get the hell out of sight.” She pauses for a moment. “Now, the main entrance is the one with the big sphinx at the door, right?”
“Umm, yes ma’am, the lion kinda thing.”
“Don’t argue, Private, it’s a sphinx. I need you to withdraw into the building right away. Don’t bother barricading the doors, just get inside. Quietly. Then get anyone else on the ground floor up to the hotel levels, out of sight. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, find your men at the north entrance and order them to withdraw. Just inside the north entrance they should see a Vittorio Handbags store. Wait there with them, and stay out of fucking sight until we arrive. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am, loud and clear.”
“Excellent. One more thing. Do you have records of everyone who’s staying in the hotel?”
A few seconds of silence pass before the voice returns. “Umm, yes, ma’am, we have them all written down in the big book in the lobby.”
“Excellent. Get that book and guard it with your life. Now get to it. If I get there and find you dead I’ll bring you back to life and kill you all over again, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Out.”
Vee tosses the radio back to a shocked Jack Benson. “I hope I’m not stepping on any toes, but you seemed like you need someone in command.”
Jack shakes his head and smiles in disbelief. “Umm... no, not at all. I think we should... umm... guys, are you happy?” He looks around at his men, all of them nodding and mumbling their agreement. Jack looks back at Vee with a dazed expression. “OK, I guess you’re in charge. What next, Lieutenant?”
Vee sets her jaw and looks around the airfield. “We have vehicles?” Jack nods. “OK, then let’s saddle up. We’re gonna go find us some scientists.”
Jack Benson turns to his men and orders them to bring the Jeeps around, and I give Vee a sidelong glance.
“A handbag store?”
She narrows her eyes. “What? I’ve vacationed at the Luxor, and I remember thinking it’d make a good defensive location.”
“You sure you don’t just want a new handbag?”
She smiles as the Jeeps arrive, and as she hops aboard I hear her mutter under her breath. “Nothin’ wrong with killing two birds with one stone.”
΅
:::26:::
THE FIRST THING I notice as we race west down Tropicana Avenue, our four Jeep convoy speeding through the streets in the shadow of the MGM Grand and the Tropicana itself, is that word of the outbreak has yet to spread beyond the Strip. There’s still traffic on the street, a few trucks here and there parked up and delivering boxes of food to the hotels that serve as refugee camps. In the sprawling parking lot out front of the Tropicana several hundred people wait patiently as the trucks unload, milling around and shooting the shit.
It strikes me that Vegas is really a world unto itself, each resort acting like its own little self contained nation, each separated by vast tracts of parking. It seems hard to believe that this little world is ending just a couple of blocks away, and these people don’t have the first clue of the danger running through the streets towards them.
I turn to Jack as he grabs his radio and orders the two Jeeps at the back of the convoy to peel off to the MGM and the Tropicana, and as we reach the Strip I look back and see the crowds first stand, then listen, and then begin to run.
Now we’re down to two cars as we turn onto the Strip, and my heart leaps to my throat as I see the first of the infected. Out at the front entrance of the knockoff Disney castle exterior of the Excalibur a crowd of refugees struggle to fight off a hundred strong swarm of infected. At this distance it’s difficult to tell who’s who, but it’s clear to see who’s winning. One man standing beside the water feature out front of the hotel brandishes his gun and stands protectively in front of a woman and three small children. Each time his arm kicks up with the recoil one of the infected drops to the ground, but with each shot more and more of them turn their attention towards the noise. As we roll by the man fires his last shot, and I see Jack avert his eyes as the swarm barrels into the family and carries them over the wall and into the water.
“OK, Jack,” Vee says, turning in her seat. Jack keeps his eyes fixed on the other side of the street. “Jack! Look at me, kid.” Finally he turns, and I see his face is white with terror. “We need your guys to draw the infected away from the Luxor, OK? The moment we reach the north entrance Tom, Warren and I will jump out, and I need you guys to make sure none of them follow us. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Jack nods weakly. “You don’t want us to come in with you?”
“No, this is a stealth mission. While we’re inside I need you to clear a path for us. Do you know how to work this?” She points to the bullhorn attached to the window frame of the Jeep. Jack nods again. “Good. I need you guys to act as... OK, this sounds worse than it is. I need you guys to act as bait. You gotta make as much noise as possible and draw the infected away from the Strip, OK? You have to draw them back to the airport, away from populated areas.”
Jack’s eyes are wide as saucers, and he looks like he’s about to puke, but when Vee’s palm connects with his cheek it brings a little color back to his face. “Focus, Jack. Man the fuck up. We can contain this, OK? These people don’t all have to die.
”
Finally Jack manages to get a few words out. “I can’t... I... I can’t. I just wanna go home.”
“Jesus.” She sighs and twists in her seat again. “Warren, can you take the lead here? I need someone who won’t piss his pants.”
Warren climbs awkwardly from the back of the Jeep to the rear seats. “OK, but you gotta promise me we go for a steak as soon as this is over. Scout’s honor.”
Vee smiles and takes the radio from Jack’s unresisting hand. She passes it to me and grabs a spare from the dash for herself, tucking it onto her belt. “Deal. We’ll call you as soon as we’re ready to go. Until then maintain radio silence.” She taps the driver on the shoulder. “OK, turn here,” pointing to the junction at Reno Avenue, running between the Excalibur and the Luxor, and the driver swings into the street in a wide arc. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see no infected near the entrance to the Luxor, but I know they’ll be close by.
“You ready for this?” Vee asks, pulling the driver’s pistol from his holster and handing it to me.
I grab the gun and check the safety’s off. “Fuck no, but let’s do it anyway.”
The Jeeps roll beneath the elevated walkway connecting the Luxor and the Excalibur, and under cover Vee and I climb quickly from the car before the convoy turns back into the street. As I scurry to the safety of the front door I hear Warren break into an ear-bleeding rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads over the loudhailer as the cars race back towards the Strip.
It’s not until I reach the glass doors of the Luxor that I see the problem.
The glass is shattered.
Beyond the doors I see movement.
They’re here.
΅
:::27:::
IT DIDN'T MATTER that Private Barnes and his men stayed quiet. They could have been as silent as church mice or banged pots and pans together as they withdrew into the casino, and it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. Beyond the shattered doors at the north entrance our ears are assaulted by electronic beeps, bells and alarms from the casino floor, and even from outside we can see the flashing lights and bright colors of the gaming machine flashing at us.
If I wasn’t so terrified I’d laugh at the irony. These machines were designed down to the last inch to be irresistible to gamblers. They were created with a single purpose, to draw in dumb people; to beckon them close enough to reach out and drop a coin into the slot. I wonder whether the designers would be proud of their creations if they could see what I see now. The machines are now a dinner bell, irresistibly drawing in the infected to eat the gamblers.
The sprawling casino floor is packed with the infected. Every flashing light and enticing sound has pulled them in from the surrounding streets, and now they stand before the slot machines, staring and frozen, hypnotized by the sound and movement.
Vee tugs my arm to draw my attention, then leans in and whispers. “You see the handbag store?”
I follow her pointed finger until I find the concession about a hundred yards into the casino, right before the rows of slots begin. It takes me a few moments to spot something out of the ordinary. “Is that...?”
“Yeah, I think so. Poor bastard.” The body of a soldier clad in fatigues lies halfway inside the store, his back twisted awkwardly over the broken window frame. I watch for a few seconds, and almost jump out of my skin when I see the man’s legs suddenly twitch. It looks like he’s caught on something and trying to work his way free, but it’s clear from his awkward, jerking movements that he’s not alive anymore. As we watch he twists his body on the frame and jerks his left leg wildly, and as he kicks out an object beside him goes sliding across the floor: a book.
“Fuck, we gotta get that,” Vee whispers, narrowing her eyes as she looks around the casino floor. She points to a flight of escalators to the right just before the store. “Get over there, quietly.” With that she stands and, without another word, begins to work her way towards the store, keeping low to avoid triggering the placid, enthralled infected.
I can feel my heart race in my chest as I break away from the front door and out over the carpeted lobby. It’s only eighty yards or so to the escalators but it’s all wide open space, and I can’t help but imagine what would happen if the scores of infected staring at the machines suddenly turned their attention to me. One false move would be enough. One accidental sound and they’d be on me, and it wouldn’t stop with them. I can only see a few dozen from here but I know there must be hundreds across the vast casino floor, all of them just waiting for something more interesting than flashing lights to chase.
Vee speeds ahead of me, moving in a stealthy crouch towards the store, and by the time I reach the escalator she’s already there. I stop and watch as she slips a small knife from her belt, and without hesitation she brings it down into the eye socket of the infected soldier caught on the window frame. He stops struggling and his body goes limp, and Vee wipes her knife clean on her clothes before slipping it back in its sheath and scooping up the book from the floor.
She turns back towards me, but as she stands I notice movement inside the store. A fleeting shape moves across the broken window, and I wave madly to attract Vee’s attention as she begins to scurry back towards me.
“Wait! Don’t leave me!” A voice cries out above the din of the gaming machines, and out from the store emerges a soldier, his face a picture of terror. Vee spins around as he runs towards her, and at the same time the closest of the infected jerk their heads away from the bright lights of the slots and lock their eyes on us.
Vee turns back to me and breaks into a sprint as the infected begin to pursue, running down the aisles between the slots and pouring into the lobby in a flood of bodies. I grab hold of the rubber handhold and leap two steps at a time up the escalator, and by the time I’m halfway up I feel the steel steps shake with the weight of the infected arriving at the base.
I run, not daring to look behind me until I finally reach the top, and when I turn I’m met by a terrible sight. Vee leaps gracefully from step to step just a few yards behind me, but the soldier isn’t so lucky. He’s dragging behind him an injured leg, and the quickest of the infected quickly reach him on the steps. One reaches out and grabs him by the foot as he leaps. His landing leg falters and misses the edge of the next step, and he falls forward and hits the serrated edge of the steps chin first. He doesn’t get a chance to recover. The infected are on him in a second and he vanishes beneath a writhing pile of bodies, punching, biting and tearing.
“Reverse the direction!” Vee yells out as she comes tearing past me. I stare at the controls for a moment in confusion before I notice, beside the big red emergency stop button, a green switch with an arrow pointing up and down. I flip it with shaking fingers and watch as the escalator judders to a halt and then begins to flow downwards, carrying the soldier’s body and the infected feasting on it back down towards the casino floor. A few of them catch sight of me and try to chase me up, but they seem disoriented by the moving stairs and trip over their own feet in their efforts to climb. If it wasn’t so terrifying I might even find it a little funny.
I find myself unable to tear my eyes from the sight. The body of the soldier is caught at the foot of the escalator, and after just as few moments the steps make their full circuit and appear back at the top. I look down at my feet and see that each step is streaked bright red with blood. One appears with a tuft of bloodied hair attached to the serrated edge and I watch, hypnotized, as it heads slowly back down to the crowd of infected waiting at the base.
“Fucking move!” Vee grabs my arm and drags me away just as a safety feature kicks in and brings the steps grinding to a halt, and as I turn to run I see the first of the infected begin to climb up towards us. We sprint across the deserted floor, our feet scuffing the ugly carpets as we run past a Starbucks, a McDonalds and yet more banks of beeping, colorful slot machines begging gamblers to drop a quarter in the slot and watch their worries slip away. Above us an illuminated sign points tow
ards a bank of guest elevators, and we turn off the main concourse as the snarls of the infected carry across the floor towards us.
Vee reaches the elevators first, and she slams a bloodied palm on the call button and watches the screen above the door count down slowly from 12. Behind us the snarls grow louder... 8... I reach out and hit the call button again in desperation, as if it might make it reach us more quickly... 5... The first of the infected round the corner and slide across the tile floor of the Starbucks... 4... It’s an elderly woman with laughably tan skin, the kind of woman who might glamorously describe herself as sun bird while everyone else sees her as a wrinkled leather handbag with nothing but a bucket of quarters to her name... 3... She’s followed by a skinny guy with a goatee and a gaudy, bloodstained Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirt, and then an overweight security guard missing one eye and most of his lower jaw...
2.
The elevator beeps out a tone and the doors slide open, and I drag Vee inside and slap my palm randomly at the buttons. The doors remain open, and the infected are just a dozen steps away.
We’re not gonna make it.
I punch the door close button with both hands, and as the security guard breaks to the front of the group and passes the final row of slot machines Vee drops the book to the ground, then slides her knife from its sheath. I can feel a scream begin to bubble at the back of my throat, and I fumble for the gun tucked in the waist of my pants, but find it missing. I grab the heavy book from the floor, lift it over my shoulder and prepare to bring it down hard on the head of the first bastard to reach us.
Vee turns to me as the security guard reaches out for the door, and everything falls into slow motion as a smile flickers on her lips.
“Don’t fuck up,” she whispers, her voice almost drowned out by the roars of the infected.
And then she jumps forward.
“No!” I barely recognize the ferocity of my own voice as Vee leaps from the elevator and launches herself knife first into the security guard. I take a step forward to help just as the doors finally slide closed, and by the time I turn to find the door open button the elevator is already moving. The last thing I saw as the doors closed was Vee falling to the ground with her knife buried in the neck of the security guard, and the wrinkled, tan old woman throwing her scrawny body down towards her.
Last Man Standing Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 39
