by Dalton Wolf
Brick glared belligerently down at him.
“NO!” Lucy screamed and slid down the rail and dove to Lola’s side, lifting her friend’s mangled corpse and holding it to her bosom, rocking back and forth and stroking her bloody blonde hair.
“You bastard!” she shouted up at Brick.
“She’s one of them now!” Brick shouted at the pair.
“What was she even doing down here?” Calvin demanded from him angrily. “I left her with you!”
“She ran away from Brick,” Trip explained, striding down the hall confidently, the well-used bat dripping fresh goo down his back. “Brick was talking to her and she screamed, broke away and ran down here,” his steely gray eyes accused their friend.
“Hey, she was crazed!” Brick shot back. “She wasn’t making sense, so I told her to shut the fuck up and…and I threatened her a bit. I can’t help it if she couldn’t take it.”
“No!” Lucy snapped, glaring up at Brick from the floor. “It was you, Brick. You drove her down this hall. I know what you did,” she accused him. “I know what you are.”
“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he retorted angrily, hefting his sword and scowling menacingly at the unarmed woman.
Calvin stepped between the two and Lucy continued.
“Lola told me—”
“—told you what?” He demanded, leaning down past Calvin and sticking his face in hers with an impressive scowl.
“Well…she said that…” she drifted off. Lola hadn’t actually told her it was Brick, but she was sure of it now. She just didn’t have any proof. Shaking her dark mane, Lucy once again hugged her friend tightly.
Brick sneered. “That’s what I thought.”
Oh Lola. Why didn’t you tell me so I’d know? Calvin and Trip would kill him right now if you’d just told me. I’m the orphan, but you’re the one who never felt she could trust anyone. Even when they were all around you trying to help, you couldn’t open up, she silently consoled her best friend, stroking her hair.
“Damnit!” Scooter spat. “You didn’t have to do it like that, Brick,” he mumbled.
“They change fast, Scoot,” Brick replied smoothly. “That’s why I flipped out. It was all happening so fast, like that crash when my whole life changed. I was driving along minding my own business and some truck runs a light and my future is gone.”
“Don’t!” Lucy spat. “Don’t cheapen Lola’s death by bringing yourself into it, you fucking Douchebag. If you can’t be the best, you’ll try to make everyone feel sorry for you. You’re a selfish, narcissistic asshole.” She stood up and glared up at him from somewhere around his chest. “But not at Lola’s expense. Don’t you dare!”
“I did what had to be done,” he spat angrily. “All of us might turn into one of those sometime. I would want the same done for me.”
“I’ll be happy to take care of that right now,” she promised, ripping off her other sparkly heel and bringing it up like a hammer.
What would have been a comical scene in nearly any other situation took on a morbid-tragedy feel as sword faced off against stiletto…heel
“Enough!” Calvin ordered. “We’re all upset. Let’s not take it out on each other. Brick’s right. She would have turned, just like all the others. She shouldn’t even have left the tower until I got up there. I sent…I sent you texts…” he sniffed and harrumphed. “I said wait until we get up there. That’s what I yelled.”
“I heard you, Calvin. She was just too excited. It’s not your fault.”
Calvin shook his head, trying to clear it. “She should have stayed up there. The rest we’ll have to work out later.”
“What do we do with her body, Calvin?” Lucy asked.
“We can’t take her with us, there’s no place to bury her,” he apologized.
“We can’t leave her here for those things to eat, or for the rats.”
“What else can we do?”
“We can bury her in the park across the street from Sarah’s work,” she suggested through tears. “You said that’s where we’re going to be staying.”
“There are zombies roaming around out there,” Brick pointed out.
“I don’t expect you to help!” Lucy snapped angrily.
“What about a coffin?” Calvin asked, trying to be sensible.
“We can put her in a storage cabinet or something.”
“Ok,” Calvin acquiesced with a sigh. “Brick, go outside and get one of the others and send them in to help me and Trip. Stay out there and keep watch.” He couldn’t think straight enough to remember who was available to come in, but they’d surely heard the exchanges over mic and would have it figured out by the time Brick got outside.
As Lucy’s eyes burned hate into his skill, Brick hesitated for a moment, wondering just how long he would continue letting Scooter tell him what to do. With an apathetic shrug, the man shouldered the sword on his leather armor and jogged out to get one of the others. In a short time, Boomer came in and they lifted Lola with great care and carried her outside, placing her gently into one of the cots in the Wagon’s cage.
The small group Calvin had left outside seemed to have everything in hand. Scaggs manned Boomer’s turret while Brick stood on the sidewalk guarding the buildings. The distant Biters hadn’t even noticed the action and only a few dozen had been attracted to the sound of the vehicles and distant shouting inside. If not for losing a very dear friend, the mission could have been considered textbook for future ‘missions’. But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. He had begun to think they were all invincible. Just like every other time in his life when he felt things were going well or that he was doing the right things, the universe slapped him upside the head for no apparent reason, perhaps just to remind him it was there and that he was powerless against it.
“Let’s get back to the Fortress,” he stated in a raspy growl.
The trip back was uneventful. They rode in silence, only radioing when they were a few blocks away from the old library that currently served as their base. Felicia parked the Hedgehog in the center of the street again and everyone got out and ran inside. This time they ran inside so they wouldn’t have to crawl through the Wagon and squeeze through the tiny doors of the ‘cage’ in the back when they backed it to the column. Those covered with zombie goo showered off while the Paddy Wagon backed up.
Calvin started to reach for Lola’s body, but Boomer and Tripper blocked his path and nodded for him to go on inside.
Athena’s heart sank as Calvin and the others entered with heavy heads and heavier hearts. The stench of death flowed in ahead of them and it wasn’t from the zombie gore being washed from the armor outside. Lucy entered wearing her favorite sun dress, but the clouds of tears in her eyes and the dark blue blanket someone had draped over her shoulders hid any radiance the outfit usually emitted. Light trails of mascara ran down both cheeks and she meandered in a dazed shuffle. Scaggs tried to keep her from running into anything, but she seemed lost, uncertain how to help someone who had watched their best friend eaten by a dead person right in front of their eyes.
“Take her to the infirmary,” the doctor said through a yawn, climbing up from a cot they had set up next to the radio room. “I’ll take a look at her.”
Athena counted everyone who entered. Then she compared the new list to her mental list. “Lola?” she asked Calvin, tears already flooding her eyes.
He simply shook his head sadly and brushed past her to the tea pot.
Boomer and Tripper came in last carrying a litter with a blanket thrown over it. “Take her to the walk-in, Tripper,” Sarah suggested in a low, saddened voice. “We’ll have to put her in some storage bags first.”
“I’d like to get some blood samples from the wound, if I can?” the doctor asked.
Calvin looked to Lucy first to see if she had a problem with that, but she didn’t seem to notice. He nodded weakly.
The guys carried her down to the nurse’s office first, where the doctor took
some samples and put them in the medical cooler. He did some other medical related things for her and then allowed the two men to wrap the body in white linen and take her to the walk-in on the main floor.
His friends were only gone for a few seconds, or so it seemed to Calvin, who sat staring at a white wall waiting for his tea to cool. When they returned, Tripper slouched into a side room and slammed the door with every ounce of his might. Sarah looked an apology to the others and followed him in, quietly shutting the heavy wooden door behind herself. Calvin took a drink from his hot tea, but somehow it was ice cold.
“No more for you, Calvin,” Athena reached out and lovingly took the mug from his cupped hands and placed it back on the table.
“There’s nothing more you can do tonight. You need to get some rest.”
Having already long-considered the benefits of surrender to this day, he let her lead him off to the room she and Sarah had arranged earlier.
“I guess you can all stand down,” he said. “Keep the watch. Wake me when it’s my turn,” he ordered groggily. “We’ll bury Lola first thing in the morning.”
Gus, Scaggs, Felicia and Joel went upstairs to the snack area by the balcony, but the rest headed for their ‘rooms’ for some much needed sleep. When he came out of the office, puffy-eyed and still shaking, Tripper went into the radio room and informed the doctor, Quinn and Hephaestus of what had happened. Despite his fatigue, he gave a detailed reply every time Quinn and Hef frequently cut in with a question. When he’d finished, he went to his room and sat in the corner with El Supremo until oblivion came for his senses.
In the office he and Athena shared, Calvin kicked off his heavy steel-clad leather boots and then stripped off his chainmail greaves and dropped it with a heavy chunk into the corner. Even the bright fluorescent lighting jabbing into his brain couldn’t keep him awake. Sitting on the edge of the air mattress so he wouldn’t fall over, he began stripping off his jeans. He’d intended to sit and talk with Athena and catch her up on what had occurred while she was stuck making food. He was asleep before his jeans hit his knees. She watched him snore quietly for several minutes splayed out like a snow angel on the edge of the bed. With an affectionate sigh she reached down and grabbed one foot in each hand, straightening his legs so she could push him all the way onto the bed. With gentle hands she softly pulled off his leather shirt and chainmail cuirass, wrinkling her nose at the faint, pungent odors of treated leather and dried blood. Moving slowly, careful not to wake him, she folded the items before laying them gently at the base of the mattress. Then she did the same with his other clothes, humming some old love song as she pulled the covers lovingly over her favorite body, and kissed him gently on the forehead. Then, with another sigh, she turned off the light and exited the room, somehow feeling content, fulfilled despite their current circumstances. That feeling of contentment lasted mere seconds before being ripped away once more, as every good moment this day had been.
Brick stood leaning against the wall at the end of the hall, waiting, watching with his shadowy, fevered eyes.
Shit, she thought. My gun is on the balcony.
She still had the long blade Sarah had given her and he clearly hadn’t seen it yet. It was one of those she and Calvin had bought from William the Smith and stood a foot and a half in length with spikes at the edges of the hilt that forced her to be very careful so she didn’t jab one into her side or arm. A putrid aroma met her nostrils as she closed on his position. She was sure he hadn’t showered in days and the events of this morning had clearly left him in dire need of some soap and a scrub brush, and maybe some bleach. Pulse rising and adrenaline kicking it up a notch, she pulled her belt around and fingered the blade all the while edging along the far wall of the hallway across from the lurking, leering psychopath. Finally spotting the brandished blade, he held his hands up in mock fear as she skirted past, twisting to keep her blade arm at a distance in case he lunged.
But he let her pass. The menacing glare he emitted as she rounded the corner promised a reckoning was near to hand, however. She strained every fiber of her hearing infrastructure to ensure he didn’t try to go into Calvin’s room after she passed, but soon she heard his booted feet stomp down the hall and the distinctive slam of the fire door midway down the hall. With a peek around the corner just to be sure he was gone, she bounded up the thinly carpeted stairs to see if anyone else was still awake, eventually sitting with Scaggs and Felicia for hours out on the patio, all three deciding to share most of the remaining watch to give the others some much needed rest. Scaggs couldn’t sleep anyway thanks to a dull ache in her fingers and a natural aversion to mattresses filled with air instead of God-given cotton. Eventually Joel returned with the promise of taking the final hours of the morning watch and the girls went to their respective rooms.
Nightmare within a Nightmare
In contrast to the frantic activities of the day, the night brought only silence and peaceful slumber for most of the group. The thick stone walls and triple-paned security windows offered a tremendous amount of protection from more than zombies as they kept even the random night sounds of the city outside and produced a sanctuary free from any exterior distractions. It was the perfect environment for deep, uninterrupted sleep and all but Joel on the watch balcony were taking advantage of the environment to replenish what energy the day had drained from them. The faint aromas of tea, pop tarts and El Supremo mingled and fluttered from room to room. Only the exit signs at the ends of each hall lit the deep darkness of the interior hallways and not even a cockroach moved in the wee hours.
A bloodcurdling scream rent the blanket of night asunder.
Tripper shot bolt upright in bed swearing to god it had been right next to him.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded from the broken night.
The night said nothing.
Rolling over, he flipped on the lighthouse lamp next to the bed, burning away the remaining, ruined fragments of the ebony quilt that had been so unusually comforting.
“Babe, you ok?” he demanded, puffy, concerned eyes narrowed further with worry.
She was not ok.
Face paler than the table cloth they had used as a sheet, her labored breathing came in ragged gasps. Eyes normally bright as emeralds in the sunlight stared dull and empty at nothing and her delicate, shapely jaw and perfect ivory teeth chomped at some unseen feast. For a moment he could see the shadow of that same obsessed hunger he’d seen in the zombies they’d faced all that day.
“Shit.” Trip muttered simply.
“Babe. Hey Babe,” he whispered softly, shaking her even more softly. “What was it? Tell me what it was, Sarah,” he cooed.
“There is something outside the building. Joel is in danger. It’s not like the others,” she gasped.
“Babe, you had a bad dream,” he tried to explain, but her dreamy eyes focused and she cut him off with a sharp, squinty glare.
“It wasn’t just a dream, Jackass. Joel’s in danger. It felt like it did when we were heading to the tower to drop Gus off.”
“Ok, ok. I’ll go check it out,” he acquiesced, rolling out of bed and slipping on his pants. Thinking again, he quickly donned his greaves and chain mail jacket and grabbed his M-16 from the desk by the door. As he staggered down the hall, only half-awake, several curious, ruffled heads popped out of doors.
“Bad dream…maybe,” he explained, flipping the safety off his rifle and doubling his step just in case. Approaching the patio lobby he was surprised to find Joel lying on the floor motioning for him to drop down. He did and crawled up beside his friend.
“What?” he mouthed.
“Something is there,” Joel pointed slowly through the rails of the patio to the street next to the Hedgehog.
Tripper didn’t really have to look to know something was there. The distinct aroma of road kill rotting three days in the hot sun forced its way onto the balcony. Following Joel’s finger, he spotted a dark shape making a circle around the vehicle, hun
ched over and grunting as it seemed to investigate the area. A ragged, continual sniffling indicated that the creature was guided by smell. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end at the sound of the grunting thing. An icy chill running down his spine, he pointed a shaking rifle at the creature and re-checked the safety. The thing slowly turned, sniffing the ground and facing the building. Head to the ground, crawling slowly, the creature seemed to follow the exact track the group had taken to the entrance, to where The Wagon now sat. Tripper’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Easy,” Joel whispered. “Don’t miss. I get the feeling that would be bad.”
The creature stopped and seemed to look up, directly into the shadows where the pair sat trembling, frozen, with wide eyes staring between the small gaps in the marble railing. Neither man breathed as they finally got a decent look at the thing. Its oversized featureless face was a dark mass in the dim pre-dawn morning, but glowing red eyes seemed to emit waves of evil in their direction. Both men wanted to fire, but were afraid of what would happen if they did. The skin of this one seemed to be scaled or something. What if the bullets just bounced off of its thick hide? Could it get inside the building?
A distant explosion to the west caught the creature’s attention and with a snort it bounded off in pursuit, using both arms and legs and leaping ten feet per step and moving at least 30mph off into the distance.
“Holy shit,” Joel exclaimed. “Did you see that?”
“What the fuck was that?” Tripper let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding.
“I think I almost pissed my pants,” Joel whispered in a shaky voice.
“That thing could probably have jumped right up in here,” Tripper answered with a stunned nod.
“Holy shit!” Joel repeated, starting to shake violently. “Did you get the vibe that thing was throwing out?”
“I think I did. I’m shaking.”
“Me too.”
They both stood leaning over the railing and watching the thing lope down the street as if it had a six cylinder in its ass pushing it along.
