The Killing Floor

by Craig DiLouie

  He believes he is still human. The tragedy is he is another product of Infection, perhaps the worst of all—a lie, a creature of deception, a Trojan Horse.

  An abomination that must be killed.

  Time for the killing.

  The first step: find a good firing position.

  Anne studies the ground, looking for a prone firing position offering support as well as concealment. Making herself as still as possible is necessary for an accurate shot, but is also exhausting. As muscles tire, they move, producing wobble in the crosshairs.

  She cannot find a prone firing position on the hill with a decent line of sight. Not even a kneeling position. Anne will have to take her shot at Ray while standing.

  Placing her palm against the rough bark of a tree, she extends her thumb to form a V and rests the butt of the rifle there, placing the stock against the pocket of her right shoulder.

  Stay right there, Ray.

  She flicks the safety to the FIRE position, pulls the bolt back to release the catch, and chambers the first round from the magazine. Locked and loaced.

  Ray stands and paces, then stops. Anne rests her cheek against the worn surface of the walnut rifle stock and aligns her eye with the scope. The blurry image comes into sharp focus as she adjusts the magnification. As the reticle clears, she centers the crosshairs on Ray’s chest, making an adjustment to the ballistic cam to compensate for her higher elevation.

  This done, she closes her eyes and relaxes. When she opens them, the crosshairs have dropped to her natural point of aim, a little left and below the target. If she were to correct and shoot now, her muscles would tense, which could throw off her aim. Anne adjusts her firing stance and repeats the exercise. When she opens her eyes, Ray is still in the crosshairs. Now she can shoot without any tension. The man looks as scared and confused as he did earlier. Rather than evoking any sympathy, this makes her hate him even more.

  In a minute, all of your worries will be over, and you can go to sleep, you prick.

  She inhales, exhales.

  As she breathes out, she delays her next inhale, knowing she has about ten seconds of perfect stillness to shoot. Her finger touches the trigger.

  Just a little more pressure, and BOOM.

  Ray grins just before a man steps in front of her shot.

  Anne pauses, blinking, and lowers the rifle.

  Something strange is happening.

  A large number of the Infected are streaming through the crowd, converging on her target.

  Ray

  Ray sits on the porch steps and watches the Infected bring him gifts. He thought about how hungry and thirsty he was, spoke the words aloud, and now here they come like robot servants, dumping pieces of jerky, cans of pasta in sauce, bottles of water, warm sodas, lint-covered Life Savers, sticks of gum, trail mix and a bag of multigrain tortilla chips crushed to the consistency of sand. He wishes for cigarettes, and soon has his choice of brands. He wishes for a stiff drink, and is given a metal flask with a bullet hole punched through the top and a little vodka in the bottom.

  Saying the words is not even necessary. Picturing it in his mind, and willing it to happen, is enough to get what he wants.

  Ray laughs. I’m king of the motherfucking zombies.

  He takes a long snort from the flask and gasps, raising it in a toast.

  “I drink to your health.”

  He is starting to process what is happening to him.

  The bug turned me into a superweapon. It allowed me to live for this, and this only.

  The Infected stand around, staring at him with their glazed, needy eyes. He pulls his STEELERS cap lower over his face and wolfs down his meal of junk food and water. Ray doesn’t want them to see him crying.

  He feels defiled. Diseased.

  “Sorry,” he mutters. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  “Sorry” doesn’t begin to cover it, bro.

  He looks up at the Infected crowding around and feels something else, too. A fierce pride. They belong to him now. They are, in a sense, his children.

  Is that me feeling this, or the bug?

  A dark defiant thought seeps into his mind and replaces his guilt. The whole world can go fuck itself and become infected, as long as I live.

  That was not the bug thinking. That was him. He lights a Winston and leans back on his elbows. I’m alive, and there is only this, and that makes this good. Whatever it is.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  You do what you think is best, Ray.

  “You got it.”

  He smokes in silence, listening to the Infected growl, and tries to reason things out.

  I’m a carrier for the bug. I can’t be around normal people. That’s the bad news. The good news is I can control the crazies. Maybe even the monsters.

  In any case, it’s nice to finally feel safe. Like a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

  On the other hand, the idea of living among the mindless Infected for the rest of his life is enough to make him doubt his sanity. He may be a bit of a misanthrope, but he is a sociable misanthrope. He may have a history of abusing people, but he needs people to be happy.

  Ray smiles at the gray faces. If he can control the Infected, he can make them all walk off the nearest cliff, or turn on each other. He could be a major weapon against Infection.

  He might, in fact, be capable of saving the world using this power. What would that idea be worth to the right people?

  Maybe nothing. Maybe they’ll kill me on sight. Just in case. Just to make sure I can’t ever hurt them. It’s the safest move for them.

  Maybe we could do a deal, though. I make all of the Infected climb the nearest mountain and jump off and die, and they find a way to cure me. It’s the least they could do for the man who saved the world.

  He chooses to believe in this possibility. It is, after all, his one hope. Like he already learned, anything can happen.

  Ray stands and stretches. That’s it, then. I’ll try to contact the government. But where is it?

  The Army is in Washington. That’s where he must go.

  The lump in his side buzzes with appreciation.

  “I’m glad the idea pleases you.”

  The solution is simple enough: All he needs is a vehicle with a full tank of gas. Maybe a pickup. He’ll take a bodyguard of Infected with him, and ditch the rest here.

  I know just who I want for the job.

  “Unit 12,” he calls. “Get your lazy asses over here.”

  His old police unit streams through the crowd. He can hear the clatter of their gear and their glottal grunts. They stop in front of him in their black T-shirts and load-bearing vests bristling with shotgun shells, grinning wolfishly, their heads cocked and their fists clenched at their sides. Two of them still wear pistols on their hips. Ray laughs and whoops.

  “Holy shit. Look what the cat dragged in.”

  Tyler Jones shoves through the milling horde, ridiculous red suspenders and all, the front of his gray work shirt black with dried blood.

  “Good to see you alive, buddy,” Ray says. “Even with the bug.”

  He holds out his hand, but Tyler ignores it.

  “I guess Jonesy didn’t make it. Sorry about that, bud. May he rest in peace.”

  Tyler grimaces, but says nothing.

  “You boys,” Ray tells them, “will be my Praetorians. I’ll bet you dumb shits don’t even know what a Praetorian is. Maybe you, Tyler, but that’s about it.”

  It feels good to talk, and oddly, it doesn’t bother him to have a one-sided conversation with a bunch of crazies. It’s not quite like talking to himself; it’s more like talking to a pet dog.

  “Now let’s see how good you people really are.”

  He pictures a pickup truck and a set of keys.

  Now fetch. Howl if you find it.

  His mental image of the truck expands to include several big-chested blondes giving it a soapy wash. He laughs.

  If you see any hot models hanging around the truck, bring them to
me as well.

  He is amazed by how powerful he feels. Before he made it to the camp, all of the fight had been sucked out of him. Now he feels like a king, with a nation to do his bidding.

  Not to rain on your parade bro, but again, is that you or the bug feeling so good?

  He finds the thought depressing. How does one know if he has free will? How much free will can you have if you have a parasite craving to be spread?

  Does it matter in the end?

  The women drift out of the mob, their faces twisted into frightening imitations of smiles. Brunettes and blondes and redheads. Beautiful, all of them, even with their unkempt hair and gray skin and feverish eyes.

  His heart races. He has not been with a woman since before the Screaming.

  What is this? Is Infection manipulating me again?

  Nope, you imagined this. The bug merely delivered.

  It wants you to be happy.

  Several Infected howl from the front yard. The owner of the house left a truck behind. The women continue to approach, softly hissing, their heads jerking.

  Stop, Ray projects.

  The woman hesitate, confused at his mixed signals. One of them lifts her T-shirt and squeezes her scratched breasts together, licking her chops while the others inch their way forward, their eyes gleaming like knives.

  Oh God—

  He knows of some guys who worked over Infected women. They raped the prettier ones before killing them. They justified it by saying the women didn’t even know they were being raped.

  Ray remembers saying he would never sink so low.

  But if I’m doomed to have the crazies as company forever. . .

  Get away from me!

  The Unit 12 cops turn and roar at the other Infected, shoving at them. The women shriek and melt back into the crowd.

  Ray takes off his cap and wipes sweat from his forehead.

  Shit, that was close.

  As if I’d ever do something like that.

  A little angel and a little devil perched on his shoulders, arguing over his soul.

  But they wanted it.

  Bro, they just wanted it because you wanted them to want it.

  I’M LONELY.

  His discontent passes through the Infected like a wind, agitating them. The crowd parts like massive curtains made of people. A single figure approaches. It is a woman, walking slowly like a bride coming down the aisle to join her husband at the altar.

  The Infected howl again in the distance.

  “In a minute,” Ray says absently, waiting.

  Her hips sway as she walks. Like the other women, her hair is wild, but while this makes the others look like broken dolls, it just makes this woman more attractive. She is older now than he remembered; he hasn’t seen her in years—not since that night she looked into his face and saw only spite. He heard she married a pharmacist and returned to Cashtown to buy a house and raise a family. If anything, the years have been kind to her. She has put on a few pounds, but in the right places. Her face has aged, but she is still beautiful. Her legs, even covered in tiny scratches and insect bites, are still shapely and muscular. When she smiles, she appears human.

  She was the only woman he ever loved.

  “Lola.”

  He takes a step forward just as the top of Tyler’s head disappears in a spray of blood.

  A second later, he hears the rolling rifle shot.

  Anne

  You screwed that up, Anne tells herself.

  Ray took a step to her right, forcing a last-second correction. Then one of the Infected stepped to the left to get out of Ray’s way, putting his head squarely in her shot as the rifle boomed in her hands.

  The bullet left the muzzle at a velocity of more than half a mile per second, shattering the Infected’s skull as if it were a melon.

  She relaxes for her next shot, searching for Ray through the objective lens of her scope. The M21 is a semiautomatic rifle with a twenty-round box magazine, giving her nineteen more shots at him before she has to reload.

  The Infected scream and wave their arms over their heads. Shoot me, they seem to be saying. Shoot me instead of him.

  Ray is still there, staring up at the hills in terror. The likelihood of him seeing her is virtually nil. She is too far away to detect with the naked eye where she is standing against the treeline, and her rifle is fitted with a suppressor that reduces visible muzzle flash.

  Inhale, hold the exhale, shoot.

  She fires again, and another Infected falls. They crowd around him now, swarming on top of each other. Her body shudders with disgust.

  This is getting weird.

  She fires again and again, dropping bodies until Ray’s pale face comes into view. He gapes at the hill where she is positioned, his mouth open in a large O.

  Got you, you little shit.

  More Infected lunge in front of him, absorbing her bullet and falling into a pile of writhing bodies at his feet.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  The rifle bangs, recoiling against her shoulder. Her view shakes. She inhales, holds the exhale and fires again. The roar of the rifle shot rolls across the valley. Her left arm trembles with the effort of keeping the weapon still.

  I let you go once.

  Another body drops, revealing a glimpse of Ray screaming with fear.

  Not again.

  The rifle dry fires with an empty click.

  “Mother,” Anne hisses, releasing the empty magazine and slamming a fresh one into the magazine well. She resumes her firing stance, but lowers the rifle, blinking in disbelief.

  The Infected have stopped shrieking and waving their arms. Working in eerie silence, they are building a living wall in front of the farmhouse. Thousands of people scramble with unnatural speed and precision on top of each other, creating a series of swaying human pyramids.

  Anne fires at the Infected at the bottom of one of the pyramids and it collapses, spilling bodies into a massive, squirming pile.

  “God damn it,” she says between gritted teeth.

  She fires into the mass, draining the second magazine. When the rifle dry fires again, she flings it onto the grass with a long, bloodcurdling howl of rage.

  Ray

  “I never hurt anyone,” Ray shouts at Lola as the truck rockets down the country road. “Sure, I beat on a few guys back in the day, but I never shot at nobody. I never killed a man.”

  Lola sits next to him in the front seat like a blow up doll, staring straight ahead with her hands in her lap, wind ruffling her hair. Behind him, in the truck bed, his cops hang on as the vehicle roars around a bend, tires squealing.

  “But someone sure as shit is trying to kill me!”

  Ray swerves hard to narrowly miss slamming into an abandoned utility truck blocking the right lane. The road is filled with wrecks. I’m going to end up wrapped around a telephone pole if I keep this up. A glance in his rearview reveals nothing but his own dust.

  Slow down. Think. Think it through, Ray.

  No way that was a random thing. No single shooter shows up to take on a freaking Mongol horde of zombies. It was an assassination attempt, plain and simple.

  Whoever it was, he was trying to kill me.

  He finds this a truly terrifying idea.

  Someone wants to kill me.

  Nobody else in the whole world. Just me.

  The question is why but the answer is not too hard to puzzle out.

  Someone knows what you did to Camp Defiance. It’s called karma, bro.

  “I ain’t a bad guy,” Ray growls, and spits out the open window. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Slowing the truck a little more, Ray lights a Winston with his steel lighter and blows a stream of smoke against the dirty windshield.

  Was his attacker military? He kind of doubts it. He has a hard time believing the military decided to chopper in a single sniper to kill him.

  If they really wanted me that bad, they would drop a cruise missile on my head.

  No, he decides. Not mi
litary. The sniper was probably some vigilante. Whoever it was, however, he is still good. Not Ray’s idea of Tom Clancy good, but good nonetheless. And there is a good chance the shooter is still hunting him.

  Then he laughs out loud. Next to him, Lola blinks rapidly.

  “Maybe I’m not the one who should be scared.”

  Ray remembers he has thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people who would give their lives to save his without a second thought.

  It was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. As he ran from the farmhouse to the truck hidden under the tarp in the front yard, thousands of the crazies were clambering on top of each other like some kind of massive Guinness World Records stunt. Tallest human pyramid. Great Wall of China, made from human beings.

  All to put themselves between him and the sniper’s next bullet. It was kind of humbling.

  They pass a state police cruiser abandoned on the shoulder of the road. It gives him an idea.

  “Whoever it is, if he keeps screwing with me, he’s going to get a bad guy. Am I right or am I right?”

  Lola nods almost imperceptibly.

  He slows the truck to a halt and shouts through the open window, “Leon, Foley, get out.”

  Two of the cops vault over the side of the truck, landing hard on their boots. They approach the driver’s side window and regard Ray with open mouths, breathing like hyenas.

  After he gives them their orders, he pulls back onto the road with a laugh.

  Whoever you are, you made a serious mistake to fuck with me.

  A roadside sign tells him he is approaching Sugar Creek. He slows the truck to a crawl, navigating a six-car pileup splashed across the road. Then he is on the main drag, driving past an ice cream shop and convenience store.

  A man stares at him as he passes, too far away for Ray to tell if he is infected. More people are on his left. One of them waves. Ray waves back.

  “Stay cool back there, guys. We’re going to bluff this out.”

  He tries not to think of the spores floating out the window to be sucked into the truck’s back draft, maybe infecting these people.