“Genius,” Abby says.
I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. Probably is, but I don’t know what else we have going for us. Surely we aren’t going to waltz up to the guards and throw rocks at them. They’d see us before we got within throwing distance.
A gunfight might work, but we want the element of surprise—get them before they can get us. The less shots fired, the less chance that other guards will be notified of our attempted coup.
Abby turns toward the door of the nearest building. She kicks it open in one go; the door practically blasts off of its hinges. The noise is loud enough to make Lilly jump.
“A little warning next time would be great,” she says.
Abby raises her eyebrows. “Sorry.”
The inside of the building is dark and it stinks like corpses and dust. We don’t have any light aside from the moon and the stars that shine in from the outside through holes in the brick and the roof. By that light, we find the stairs. I estimate it’ll take about five minutes to get to the top if we hurry.
On our way, we pass mutilated corpses. Businessmen and businesswomen twisted at odd, unnatural angles. Some of them no longer have faces; they’ve been smashed by falling ceiling beams and crumbling walls; an eye over here, an ear over there. Others, aside from the way their legs are bent beneath them, or the way their arms have snapped and now dangle by threads of frozen sinew, look like they could be sleepwalking or something.
I pass a woman with brittle, blonde hair. The way she’s looking up at me, the stars gleaming in her eyes, makes me think of Darlene, and this terrible feeling clutches the pit of my stomach. I want to stop and fall down next to her, cradle her in my arms. I want her to wake up and tell me everything is going to be okay… But I know it’s all bullshit.
Everything is not going to be okay.
And that is not Darlene; Darlene had her throat slit by the one-eyed man, the Overlord. She died in San Francisco, just like Junior did, just like the rest of my family in Haven was taken from me.
“Keep up, Jack,” Abby says.
Lilly must see me staring at this woman. She comes down the few steps and puts her hand on my back, on the stinking cloth of my cloak. “It’s not her, Jack,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
“She’s in a better place,” Abby adds. She’s looking at the woman’s corpse now, too, and a flicker of recognition flashes in her eyes.
So I’m not crazy. This lady does look like Darlene.
“Remember that. And remember she’s watching over you. Junior, too.” Abby turns away, but I catch a gleam in her eyes before she does. She’s tearing up.
This hurts me more than I care to admit. Abby crying? I’m sure I’ve seen her cry before, but it takes a lot for her to do that. A lot.
“Let’s go on,” Lilly says. She gracefully takes the role of leader for now.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?” she asks.
“For everything,” I reply, and then we’re going back up the steps.
The door to the roof is not easy to open, but through our combined efforts, we force it wide enough for us to slide through the crack. The sound the hinges make is akin to someone screaming bloody murder, like a banshee, but we are too high for anyone to notice it on the ground.
I hope.
This city is full of a screaming current. The air cuts through the buildings, finds the blown open spaces, and makes a sound like wind around old headstones.
We take a spot on the east side of the building and peer down. Inside the stadium, lined up like cannons in a war, are nuclear missiles. They’re smaller than I expected, but then again, there’s the saying that dynamite comes in small packages. Nuclear weapons do, too, I guess.
Not far from the arsenal, bisected by a length of chainlink fence, is a helicopter landing pad. The ‘H’ and the circle around it look to be written in bright white spray paint. There’s no helicopter parked on the pad, though.
“I’ll take the three in front of the stadium. You take the watchtower,” Abby says.
“What do I do?” Lilly asks.
“You guard the door,” Abby answers.
“But I’m a good shot,” Lilly argues. “Tell her, Jack.”
I look at Abby and nod. “She is. Back before we came to you in Chicago, we had a shootout on a farm. She covered me from about a quarter mile away with no scope.”
“And at the gas mine,” Lilly says.
Abby says, “Fine,” and hands over her rifle.
Lilly grins. “The student has become the master,” she says.
“Enough bullshit,” Abby says. “Blast those guards to hell. We gotta get in and out before the Overlord lands. See anything moving in the stadium, you blast them, too.”
But it seems Abby has doomed us. By speaking of the Overlord landing, she has made it come true.
The air fills with the sound of whirring helicopter blades. We all look up and see, coming from the east—the same side of the building we’re currently standing on—bright lights against the dark, cloud-covered sky. On the helicopter’s tail, red flickers on and off, on and off.
A rush of wind washes over us as Lilly is crying for us to get down, but it’s so dark up here, I doubt whoever’s in the helicopter has seen us. They swoop over the stadium and the bird rocks back and forth as it prepares for a landing. I peer over the edge.
“What are you waiting for, dummies?” Abby shouts. “It’s now or never.”
She’s right. The sound of the blades will mask our shooting.
I take aim at the men in the guard tower as Lilly aims down at the men in front of the arena. We pull our triggers. The darkness is now alight with intermittent sparks of gunfire.
I hit both of my targets. One is a clean headshot; I watch his skull explode like a watermelon dropped from twenty stories. The other guard is farther, so my aim isn’t as clean. I clip him in the shoulder, and he spins around viciously, exposing the back of his head. I aim and fire again, but I misjudge the angle and get him in the neck with two slugs. In the dusky brightness from the lamp on his tower, dark red sprays and splashes the glass, turning the light a crimson color.
Lilly has no problem hitting her mark, though. As I turn to watch her mop up the last guy, I see he’s smart enough to make a run for it, except he doesn’t run into the cover of the stadium, but instead takes off down the road. He goes sharp right. Lilly—the epitome of concentration, with the gun’s barrel balanced firmly on the ledge, one eye closed, holding her breath—takes the shot.
The man falls as soon as the thunderclap from the gun reaches our ears.
“Geez,” Abby says loudly. The helicopter’s blades continue whirring. “You weren’t lying.”
Lilly hands her the gun back. “Nope,” she says.
I’m up and at the door, already on the first step. If that’s the Overlord in the stadium, it’s only a matter of time before he catches on to the attack and flees. I have to get him before he does.
“Jack, wait up!” Abby yells.
But I don’t. I’m sprinting down the steps, going around and around. I step over the woman who looks like Darlene without even sparing a second glance. A couple times on my descent, I consider sliding down the railing, but realize that probably won’t end well for me. I’ll slip, fall over the edge, and probably break my neck or bust my head open. Typical Jack Jupiter shit. So I’m as careful as I can be, going down these steps until I reach the door Abby busted down, then I burst through it the opposite way and onto the street.
I hang a right and go up the road leading to the stadium. I’m sprinting faster than I ever have in my life; my feet almost don’t touch the ground. It’s like I’m flying. My lungs are mercifully pumping air without the usual burning that accompanies the horrendous act of running, especially when said runner has had no sleep and very little food.
On my left is the guard tower where I shot the man in the back of the neck. Something stops me in my tracks. It�
��s the crackle of a walkie-talkie, and a man’s voice saying, ‘We’re under attack! We’re under attack! I’m letting them out now and sealing off the downtown! If you’re within the boundaries, get out now! I repeat, get out NOW!’
Another crackle, another voice. ‘Operation Viper Release is a go!’
That’s when I hear something else. Something much louder than the crackle of the radio and the slowed whirring of the helicopter’s blades.
It’s a sound like a gate being raised, like chains rattling. Then—
The collective groan of hundreds of zombies. And the sound is getting closer…closer…
Thirty-Eight
They ooze out from the cracks of the city like some kind of poison from a wound. These are not zombies like the ones below ground in the subway prison. These are worse. So much worse.
Radiation sickness was the cause of their deaths, I’m guessing. The slow poisoning caused by the aftermath of the bomb dropped on this city. Their dead organs glow with a slight green tinge. I never thought that effect was true of radiation, I thought it was something reserved for pop culture. Boy, am I being proven wrong now.
The zombies amble around the watchtower. Their arms are out, reaching for me. On their flesh, lit up faintly by the sickly green light, are blisters and sores. Each one leaks its own rivulet of pus and blood and dark ichor. One with only tufts of stringy hair hanging from its scalp sights me and turns in my direction. Its neck is broken, and its head hangs crookedly, bobbing with each step.
The zombie behind this one looks like it’s wearing an exercise ball on its back, and the seams of their shirt are stretched to the limit. It steps with the right foot and drags the left, and on each step, whatever is in the bubble on its back sloshes around. I can hear it over the collective moans.
Here is one with a third arm no bigger than a baby’s, growing from the base of its neck at the collar bone, which juts out like broken sticks in mud. The fingers on this useless arm wiggle, grasping at nothing.
I take a step back before I realize there is nowhere for me to go. They are surrounding me, coming from every angle. I can’t even lift up my rifle.
Stop it, Jack, I tell myself. Stop it and move! It does not end here. It does not end right now. Think of Darlene. Think of Junior. Think of Herb and Tim and Carmen! You have to live for them, because if you die, they can no longer be a part of you; they die with you. Their memories, their smiles, their love and warmth. Move, Jack! Move—
“Move, you idiot! Move!” It’s Abby’s voice.
I snap my head to the left and see her and Lilly on the street. They have their guns raised and they’re blasting the crowd. Green blood splashes the walls. The sidewalk’s cracks fill with brains and guts, as bullets cut the zombies into shreds.
That’s enough of a wakeup call for me. The gun doesn’t feel so heavy now. Up it goes. My finger on the trigger.
Ah, it feels like home.
The bullets eat away the tops of the closest zombies’ heads. They explode. The gun vibrates, rocks my whole body. This can get painful, but I’m so used to it now that I have calluses on my right shoulder from the constant friction.
Then I hit the pulsing back of the zombie with the abnormal beach-ball-sized tumor on its back. It pops in an explosion of greenish-white pus, and drenches the nearby undead as they reach out for me. It’s a tidal wave that knocks them off-balance, off-course.
That’s no problem for me. I adjust my aim accordingly, then squeeze the trigger until the gun clicks empty.
I reach in my pocket and pull out another magazine. Lock and load.
This is where I get cocky. I line up the next shot perfectly.
A group is at my back, coming from an alley near the stadium, but they’re about three hundred feet away. That means I have about twenty seconds before they reach me. Twenty seconds is a long time when fighting a horde of zombies. I can take down as many as thirty for sure, fifty if my aim is on point—which it usually is. Plus, I have Lilly and Abby on my side tonight. They’re mowing down the zombies as fast as they come.
But where are they coming from? We haven’t seen a single zombie since we left the subway prison. This place seemed completely devoid of the undead, then BAM, all of a sudden, they’re everywhere. The only thing I can surmise is that the District keeps them locked up some place. I don’t know why. Maybe as a form of warfare, a failsafe if all goes wrong, like is happening for them now.
I pull the trigger. The gun does a half-click.
That’s not good. Not good at all. I know that half-click too well. It means the gun is rejecting my trigger finger, it’s jammed.
The zombies are coming right for me.
I stumble backward, and my sole squelches in something that reminds me of mud. I slip, fall, feel gravity turn against me. Next thing I know, I’m on my ass, and the zombies are closing around me, getting closer and closer. Each of their ruined faces turns black. They wear hoods now. They are Grim Reapers, come to bring death upon me and end me once and for all.
Scrambling backward, I manage to stand up. I squeeze the trigger again and get nothing but the dull click-click from the jammed weapon.
“Abby? Lilly? A little help?” I shout.
Abby is barely visible over the horde, but I know she’s over there because of the spray of blood. She brings her gun down on the head of one of the zombies. It splatters everywhere.
I raise my gun. Like a fucking MLB player, I swing with all the force I have left in my body, and knock the head off a guy whose face looks like a lump of clay. The open mouth makes a gurgling noise as it flies through the air.
I’m still backing up. I keep moving, but when I turn around, there’s a new horde to greet me. They came from seemingly nowhere, yet here they are. I spin around, smack the gun down on the top of the head of a mutant woman. She crumbles beneath the hit, but my gun is stuck in the ruins of her skull and brains. The gummy wounds have swallowed up the butt of the gun, and I can’t get it out. All of a sudden I’m like King Arthur before he’s king, trying to pull Excalibur from the stone. Except, where he had success, I don’t have any.
Shit.
Fortunately, fifteen-plus years in this hellhole has taught me when I’ve won and when I’ve lost. Right now, I’ve lost.
I abandon ship just as Lilly’s gun rips off a bevy of rounds, and a bunch of zombies pile up in front of her. Too bad she’s about fifty feet from me. I scream her name, scream for help—I’m man enough to admit this—but she doesn’t hear me. The collective death rattling is too loud. If I want to live, I’ll have to find my own way out.
A zombie lunges at me. I swing downward with my fist, and the top of its head squelches upon contact. It’s a sickening sound, and an even sicker feeling. It falls to my feet in a heap of blood and radioactive sickness. I step over it, careful not to slip in the muck. By this time, I hear a voice. It’s Lilly.
“Go, Jack! Go!” she yells. Then her gun is ripping off rounds, and zombies are falling all around me.
A path is cleared, and I do not hesitate to this path, because what else can I do? The only other option is death. I’m not ready to die yet. I have one goal in mind, and it lies beyond the stadium gates. There, the Overlord awaits, and there, I will slay him and exact my revenge for what he did to my wife and son, to my home, to Haven.
The path leads straight to the stadium’s entrance. I rush through fallen zombies at what seems like light speed. I’m crushing fingers and faces beneath the soles of my boots, using them as stepping stones.
No less than thirty seconds later, I’m at the stadium’s entrance. The gates are cracked. I feel a hand closing around the tail of my cloak, but I slip through the crack just as the hand grips my hem.
Turning around, I am face-to-face with possibly the ugliest zombie I’ve ever seen in my life. Like with some zombies, I can’t always tell if it’s a female or a male. The monster possesses just a few strands of hair, but they’re not long. Maybe once upon a time they were, but not anymore. In
its mouth is an array of broken teeth. Jagged. Sharp. Ready to sink into my flesh and tear me apart.
I twist and move rapidly, trying to shimmy the damn thing off me. My heart is going a mile a minute. Every sense in my body is in maximum overdrive, but the zombie is holding on for dear life. It must be hungry. Very hungry.
I yank it toward me.
Any other time, this might be suicide, but right now, the movement wedges my attacker beneath the bars. There’s a sound that reminds me of a garbage disposal just as I lift my boot and kick the bastard square in the forehead. With my back against the wall, I know it’s life or death, so I kick out with all the force I have left in my body. The zombie’s head crumbles beneath my sole. There’s so much juice and rotted brains within that head, that I’m soaked all the way up to my socks.
The zombie drops to the concrete, and I don’t stick around for the others that are coming. And best believe more are coming. They always are, aren’t they? It must be the smell that attracts them, the smell of death and gore. Or my flesh. I don’t know.
One of the guards Lilly took out is sprawled out against the fence, on the other side. I take his gun from him, eject the magazine, see there’s not many rounds left, then with my foot, I push the poor guy forward. He slumps, teeters, and falls flat on his face. A stream of blood leaks out from the bullet wound in his head, stretching down the concrete ramp that leads up to the stadium.
The zombies, with their glowing, greenish-yellow eyes, turn their attention to the food thrust before them. One drops on top of the body. Another. Two more. The body is swallowed up by the mass of undead. Hands plunge into the soft flesh of the guard’s neck. There’s a sickening pop as two zombies tear the guard’s head off by the ears and the hair. Blood spurts from the stem of his neck, covers the grimy zombies in a sheet of red. One of these zombies falls backward, cradling the guy’s skull like it’s some precious treasure. Up to the zombie’s mouth the head goes, and the zombie’s jaw practically unhinges, showing me rows of rotted and sharp teeth, as it bites into the soft flesh of the guard’s cheek.
The Dead Collection Box Set #2: Jack Zombie Books 5-8 Page 55
