“Zombies?”
“Them too.”
A rising tide roaring toward a shoreline; the hum from the groaning mass of zombies outside grew louder.
“I’M HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE!” Sutter announced.
The building shook, and drops of an oily black liquid sprayed through the windows, splashing the graffiti-stained walls.
Whatever the bone man had done to her was about to work. She really wasn’t afraid of death.
Gunfire popped off, slapping at the air. Violence. Violence. Screams.
Vega left the men behind, running down the stairs. She joined several other men who filed down the steps, crashing into each other, sliding shells into shotguns, calmly walking, calmly moving. Nobody was panicking. They all moved purposefully. Nobody looked at her.
And then people were trying to run back up.
“Get up the stairs! There’s too damn many of them!”
Panic.
Tide of bodies lapping shore. Nobody could go anywhere.
Vega was slender enough to push between them, and their bodies were wet. Someone tried to grab her rifle, but she was able to make a lucky guess with her heel and kick the right shin. Hands released her rifle.
When she felt the hot, metallic breath upon her face, she knew what it was.
It was time.
Her eyes found a face that was black, a face that had rotted. The skull was stiff, like it was nothing more than the head of a dusty puppet.
She couldn’t draw the 9mm. Not enough space to reach for the weapon.
And the black face jerked forward and latched onto the shoulder blade of a man who was trying to get back up the stairs. The man arched his back and screamed, but he could not move forward or turn around. He tried to wriggle his shoulders awkwardly, as if trying to shrug off a storm of locusts.
Shouting. Shoving. Bodies rubbing against each other, heads thrown back. Cursing, shouting, spitting. Fear-concert filling the acropolis stairwell. This cold place filled with bodies and glass.
Father Joe would have been proud of her.
Because she had reached down and found the gun of the bitten man within the crowd’s forest of legs. She pressed it against his leg and pulled the trigger. She squeezed another round into the leg, and then another, until his hand released the gun.
Nobody here was praying or begging.
They were ready for war.
How long had it been since so many guns had been on her side?
Nobody here was on her side.
The man was trying to fall, his mouth open in a roar of pain. If she could clear through some space, just a few inches, she could get down the stairs. There wasn’t much further to go.
Drop. Drop. Come on, drop. Fall down and die.
There. Just an inch.
Shoulder forward, push through. The poor guy was going to die for a good cause. With his gun, she fired a bullet into the zombie’s skull to thank him, and pumped two rounds into the shape that would have been his face.
What did her body look like as it spun forward, desperately plunging into another fight? Her mind had shut off. There was nothing inside of her. She moved according to a set of parameters dictated by her body’s design. A step slower than she used to be, but smarter. More efficient.
Down on one knee, she carefully sighted along the barrel of the handgun and popped one more bullet through the chamber with a nice head shot to the top of someone’s head. It might have been a zombie. They stumbled forward for a moment as if they hadn’t been shot at all until finally collapsing.
Several people walking in a lot of different directions. People everywhere. Bullets zinging through windows. Through the floor. Through the ceiling. Dust rained through the gun smoke fog.
The handgun was empty. Click.
Drop the weapon, roll the rifle over her shoulder, hold both grips, rise to another firing position, and slowly walk forward, one foot firmly planted in front of the other. A short burst of firepower at a time, calmly stalking through the dusty fog. Terminating anything that stepped in front of her.
Methodically circling around the room, trying to keep her back to a wall at all times. Any second now, and a bullet would find her own cerebral cortex and shut her eyes off for good.
Well now.
She kept firing. Stopped to reload. Hands calm. Smooth. Drop the old magazine and slap in the fresh one, line up the scope, share the love. Pivot, and line up another target.
They were dropping around her. Dropping because of her.
Another magazine. Slap. Rock and roll. Turn up the volume.
Daddy would be so proud.
“GET THE UPPER FLOORS BARRICADED!” Sutter commanded. His voice cut through the battle, through the rampant gunfire-static. The smell of oil and blood was thick.
And there he was, positioned by a window. Both of them were there—Vincent and Sutter. Vincent positioned behind a window, firing through the scope of an AR-15. Good boys always get nice things, apparently. Sutter stood near him in his white suit, arms outstretched as two men outfitted him in chain mail, a gas mask to protect his eyes and nostrils from the fumes that would be caused by his flamethrower.
A flamethrower?
Really.
“Look who’s joining the party!” Sutter laughed heartily.
Vincent turned and glared at her. What did he see? What did he want to see? He didn’t want to see anything. Not here, not anymore.
“Got started without you,” he said awkwardly.
She ignored him and watched the men help Sutter get his gear together. Chain mail armor and gas mask.
“I swear I’m going to shove that megaphone up your ass,” Vega said.
“I’m melodramatic,” Sutter said. “Can’t help myself.”
Look at Vincent not say anything. What was there to say?
She had thought about killing him.
She looked around, her pulse slowing. Time had slowed down. Vega’s eyes recognized a battlefield’s worth of corpses lying atop each other in strange patterns. Moaning bodies. Twitching bodies.
Together, the survivors of this first wave walked down into the main lobby, a massive, open area painted in graffiti. Marble floor. Romanesque columns. The word VOMIT the most noticeable display of vandalism. And of course, the miniguns she had seen when they brought her in.
“Did you see that thing?” Vincent asked.
“Depends on what the thing is.”
“The giant.”
“Giant?”
“I don’t know what to call it. Looked like a giant made of those things. Maybe I’m losing it.”
“Sure thing, buddy.”
“Where’s the rifle?”
“Rifle?”
“The one I gave you. The Bushmaster.”
“I think God has it now.”
The windows were high and thick with cobwebs. What was Vincent talking about? He was back in the thick of things which meant something had rattled him, woke him up enough to jump in. Sutter had drugged them with the bone man’s help, and they were at each other’s side again.
A shadow passed over the windows. Something very big would have to make a shadow like that.
The walls and ceiling shook, and the ground beneath their feet trembled.
The air was sucked out of the room.
Everyone looked up.
A black mass burst through the windows and rained down; a thick black stream of dirt and filth. Vega thought of a trebuchet that fired balls of earth and rock. Balls that broke like eggs and opened to things buried in the dust, writhing shapes with eye sockets full of ash and remaining teeth like wooden stakes.
The following stream through the window was thicker, a sluicing river flowing through the opening and flooding the main hall. The entire room was becoming a mud pit speckled with blood and screams, dust and ash rising like steam. Vega had been through desert storms.
She tried to shield her face with the side of her rifle, one hand on top of the gun, the other beneath the barr
el; she knelt on one knee leaned forward into the side of the gun; she held her breath, counted to seven, and peered through a brief hole in the cloud in front of them and moved her wrists as if they were operating a turret. She opened fire. The she stood, inhaled, coughed out, inhaled again, coughed out, inhaled. Combat stance. Feet ready to move.
No more miniguns. The guns had disappeared beneath a mound of living dead. They wriggled atop each other, squirming and untangling, pieces coming apart or being in odd positions.
Vega sprayed a field of fire and stepped back. She sprayed another round, sweeping the gun from left to right, and stepped back again.
This time, Vincent was beside her, his weapon’s horizon of fire below hers. He remained a couple of steps ahead of her as they took turns. Fire. Step. Stop. Fire. Step. Stop. There was no way to assess what lay ahead of them. A surge of forms pushed ahead of them. Taking cover would be a waste of time if there were so many—and there were. So movement and firepower. Footwork and patience. A violent rhythm with her partner, Vincent.
Vincent stopped to reload, and then she reloaded. Only Vincent didn’t resume their dance. He was looking over his shoulder.
***
Look at Sutter: white suit, chain mail, flamethrower, oxygen mask. Running down to greet the dead with a thunderous laugh. He laughed at all of them, at everything, at nothing. He laughed and approached the crowd deliberately.
“Oh RIIIIIGHT!” Sutter said and half-crouched. “I WANNA ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT, AND PARTY EVERY DAY!”
Whoosh. A flash of bright heat. Let there be light.
Now this:
Strands of matted hair, thinning hair, catching fire. Bright orange heat stuffed into a narrow hallway, between the towering pillars. The ceiling was several feet high; the flame would not touch an upper floor. Not from here. Not yet.
A river of flame. A bright, liquid river of flame. Flesh popped and sizzled. The smell of sewage cooking. Methane? Hundreds of bodies surging forward, suddenly motivated to move faster.
Vincent opened fire.
A familiar hiss sparked overhead, and the radiant explosion against one of the pillars rocked dust from the ceiling. Vega turned around and saw the old woman, Mean Magda, loading an RPG.
And then Vega pivoted, knelt, and pumped rounds into targets.
It wasn’t enough. They kept coming. Chattering rapid-fire song and flame did nothing to drive them back. They kept coming.
Nobody was dropping their guns. Nobody was running.
But they were backing up.
“WHEEEEEW!” Sutter laughed madly. “GET USED TO BURNING IN HELL, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
He kept laughing, even as he dropped the flamethrower gear. He dropped the mask from his face. Drew a 9mm.
She had turned her head. Hands tugged the rifle from her hands. To hell with fighting a tug-of-war with a thousand hands. She let them have it, then drew her own 9mm and put a slug into a skullcap. Her rifle disappeared into the sea.
Her ankle sagged against a step. Fingers snuck between the shoelaces on her boot. She fired into the shapes. Another hand in her boot. She fired. Fired. More hands.
Dragged upward, boot wrenching free. One step up. Just enough. She knew who had helped her up and didn’t need to turn around. She knew Vincent helped, because his strong hand was beneath her again, lifting her up and back.
Click.
Time to reload.
“Self-destruct mode!” Sutter shouted. “Hold your grenades, ladies!”
The man in the white suit held only a grenade in his fist, and he attempted to direct traffic back up the stairs. Vega saw Mean Magda fling the RPG into the crowd and grab a grenade from her pocket, then she took the pin out.
Damn. She wanted a grenade of her own.
They had managed to make it back up to the second floor. Vega slipped on blood and landed hard on her left shoulder. A man with a shotgun in front of her fell hard, and an army of hands scrabbled up the stairs and violently grabbed them. Vega snatched the shotgun and squirmed backward, slithering against the floor.
Vincent helped her up, and she checked both 12-guage barrels. Locked and loaded.
The concussion from the sudden blast blinded her. A wave of air punched her in the head, and her ears were ringing. The man who had fallen and dropped the shotgun probably had a grenade in his hand.
She opened her eyes and found a familiar man staring down at her. It took her a moment to figure out who it was.
“Miles,” she barely managed to say.
THIS DIFFERENT CITY
THE CHAMP
Bill rubbed the stubble on his cheeks and looked out the window at the empty street. The street where he had fought and destroyed several of the undead with his bare hands. Now there were only a few corpses twitching in the wreckage, their bones shattered, bodies unable to walk upright.
Why should he feel guilty about anything? That woman had wanted to kill him, and had been more than willing to let him die. Bill kept trying to protect people, save their lives, and they turned their backs on him.
Vega, and now the strange black woman.
She thought the man in the hallway, the screaming man, was him.
Or did she?
The guy certainly looked like Bill.
Bill didn’t sleep. He prayed and stared out the window, waiting for dawn.
What was he really waiting for?
All his life coaches made decisions for him. Teachers, coaches, team captains. He always followed the lead of those who knew better, and he tried his best to work as hard as he could. He hoped he could lead by example.
Draft day. He tried to remember draft day. One of the best days of his life. Sitting at home wearing a suit and tie. Mom and dad. His brother. Cousins. Friends. Priest from St. Gertrude’s. What a day. What a day that had been.
The phone call from his agent.
“Bill.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a Detroit Lion. Congratulations.”
In the first round, 4th overall pick.
Hugs, handshakes, laughter. A room filled with joy. Hands slapping him on the back. Because he had always believed in doing the right thing. Working hard in school, staying out of trouble, hanging out with the right crowd, treating people the right way, going to church on Sunday.
It was enough to make him forget that he had witnessed rape. He had witnessed it and did nothing about it.
Make a decision.
Lead the way.
The woman who had died on the roof mentioned a train depot. Is that where Vega was? What about the other woman, the one who fled from him and thought he was dead? She was afraid of him and had wanted him to die; she was a different kind of survivor, one who was used to death and horror. Used to doing whatever it took to keep herself alive.
And wasn’t Vega the same way?
Wasn’t he the same way?
Bill tried to shake the memory of his experience in the hallway a few hours ago. Zombie children and a man who had probably watched those children become zombies. The man had been waiting for rescue, holding on to hope. Now, he was dead. Bill could have saved him.
Decide. Where to go? Home?
Vega was uncontrollable, but she was on a mission. Trying to save the world? It wasn’t about saving the world, but if Doctor Desjardins was telling the truth, then there was still a need for good people to step up and help others. Father Joe had done that, putting himself on the line for others. Vega had wanted to find the priest.
No, she didn’t. She had gone searching for her own vengeance. It had nothing to do with Father Joe.
Wayne State University. That last night, working out by himself, a horde of people was rioting at the college. It was on the television. The college had been a hub of activity, with tanks and jeeps and guns. Mike Taylor had even mentioned it once before, but no salvage team wanted to try.
Bill could try.
Tanks.
Careful not to slip on blood, he walked out of the apartment and back to the ro
of. The roof was clear; only the bloody carcass of a mutilated man was left. Bones amid old spaghetti sauce that had been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time.
Back down the fire escape. In the ruined street. He wasn’t exactly sure where Wayne State was.
He used to hate driving the trash out to the hole in the freeway; the neighborhood had dumped all its trash in that hole, and when he saw Father Joe get hurt out there, he decided he would never allow anyone else to go besides him. Bill survived once; no need for anyone else to try it.
This reminded him of the drive, but now he was on foot and on his own, walking through the streets.
There was no sun in the hazy-white sky, or at least none that he could see.
A heavy piece of metal dropped into the street somewhere. Clang. And he stopped to look around. He shouldn’t have stopped; he knew better.
Echo in the valley of death.
Metal again. Echo through the city’s graveyard. The city was a graveyard. There was no color to anything.
Overturned baby stroller. Rusted wire shopping carts. Black spots like holes in car doors. Hoods charred black. Tires sagging. Skeletons sagging in weather-faded clothes.
Bill needed to move. Get out of there, man.
Somewhere nearby, the sound of an animal bumping into a car. Thumped against it, like a bird accidentally flying into the windshield of a race car.
A man climbed over the hood of a car and stood there. Bill immediately knew it was a man. Wrinkled suit. Black shoes dusted with ash and dust. Bald skull. Bald eyes. Large, perfectly straight teeth. Teeth that should have rotted out of its head a long time ago. It opened its mouth, and a stream of maggots dropped onto the cement. The maggots were accompanied by worms, and they splashed against the street.
This zombie saw him. Wanted him. Knew it wanted him.
Was this one of the rotted? He had heard about them—but here, now…?
The creature stared at him, and Bill didn’t move.
He didn’t have a weapon. Why didn’t he think about this?
When another corpse stumbled from between the cars, he noticed a more purposeful gait. Limbs were straight, as if conscious thought operated those dead bodies instead of an animal instinct. Its gaze was directed at the pile of writhing worms and maggots.
Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) Page 34
