by A. P. Fuchs
“Hey, Mark,” she whispered, but kept the volume loud enough that he’d hopefully hear her. “Mark. Come on, answer me!”
No response.
“Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .” The voice was hollow.
Michelle pulled out the gun from the holster on her belt, gripped the handle tight, and held it under the flashlight as she slowly made her way down the ramp. That kid shouldn’t have run off, she thought. He knows better than that. Going to have to talk to Rhonda after this. She needs to take him over her knee and tell him going off alone into a collapsed parkade is downright stupid and dangerous. Her heart beat hard, angry.
“Mark?” she whispered.
A raspy groan came from somewhere up ahead. Michelle froze in her tracks.
Someone screamed, the tone high.
Like a child’s.
“I’m coming!” she said and kept to the side of the ramp as she jogged down, snapping the flashlight left and right, lighting her way. She already had her finger on the trigger should any of the dead jump out at her.
Once she was at the bottom, Mark screamed again. “Michelle! Help!”
“Where are you?”
She heard a hollow crash, as if something or someone just slammed into one of the cars down here. “Follow my voice!”
“I’m trying!”
“See the light?”
“Yeah. It’s far.”
Great. How did he get so far into this place? Did he run in and get lucky? “Come toward me.”
Mark screamed. Michelle moved as fast she could, maneuvering around vehicles, hopping over where one bumper met another. Now in the actual parkade, she had to stop and quickly get her bearings. Gone were the orderly rows of filled parking spots and the lanes in between. Some cars and trucks were still in their spots, but the majority were either clogging the lanes or half-pulled into them.
She heard Mark’s footfalls on the pavement. A chorus of groans followed.
From behind her, “Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .”
“Dillon, is that you?” she asked.
She thought she heard a faint wheeze, but it was hard to make out above Mark’s running footsteps and the growing calls of the dead.
The low thudding of what could only be bodies bumping into the plastic and metal of vehicles forced her to shine her light to her left. She briefly saw Mark pop into view before disappearing again in the shadows just as a dead man with a bald, veiny head missed grabbing him.
“Mark, over here!” she said.
“I see you. The light. I’m—AHHHH!”
“Are you—” Before she could finish, thick arms grabbed her from behind. She dropped the flashlight on the ground, its beam illuminating an old Chevy just past it. Undead shadows quickly materialized against the lit-up pavement.
Behind her, the zombie groaned just next to her ear. She thrashed and jerked to get herself loose. The zombie’s hands slipped off then quickly found her again and held on even tighter. Arms locked with no leverage, she twisted to the side and noticed the dark outline of a van in her peripheral. She jerked that way and slammed her body along with the zombie’s against the van’s side. A low thump echoed in the parkade as the zombie’s head rammed against the glass. It didn’t break, but the blow was enough to knock the undead man off balance. She shot her elbows back left then right, left then right; each time her elbows connected with the dead man’s ribs, each blow bought her a couple of inches away from his rotting form.
The gun. She had dropped her gun! She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed until now, her immediate concern having fallen on letting go the flashlight. Was she getting rusty? Didn’t matter. Not now. She had an extra gun anyway. She slammed her elbows at the same time against the zombie and got herself free. She yanked another gun from a second holster on her belt and sent a bullet into the creature’s head with a quick pop.
“I’m under a truck!” Mark yelled from beyond the Chevy.
“See the flashlight?” she asked, running in what she thought was the direction of his voice. She squeezed her way past the Chevy and stepped over the fallen motorcycle beside it.
“Yeah. It’s ahead, on my left. Hurry!” Mark said. “No! It’s got my feet!”
“Kick your legs as hard as you can,” she said.
Michelle went for the flashlight but not before firing off two more shots and dropping two stumbling shadows just behind the light’s beam.
She picked up the flashlight, shone it around mid level, and took out an undead crone of a woman who was trying to get between two cars, but couldn’t get past where the bumpers met.
Michelle dropped to her hands and knees and shone the light. “Mark!”
“He has my legs!”
She peered under the vehicles. Dirty pant legs and dragging feet were seen under most of the cars. There! On the left. A moving body. Had to be Mark.
“Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .” Where was that voice coming from?
“I’m coming, Mark!” Michelle said and slid over the hood of a gray Honda Civic. She plugged an undead teen boy shambling toward her.
Quickly, she was on the other side of the truck under which Mark lay. An undead man in a bad blue suit was on his stomach, tugging at the boy’s shoes, seemingly trying to get them off so he could bite down. The rest of Mark’s legs were hidden under the vehicle. Michelle pressed the barrel of her gun against the dead man’s head and pulled the trigger. Blood and brain splashed out and his body went limp.
“Mark, it’s me. Get out of there,” she said.
“I’m coming.”
Another zombie appeared on the other side of the truck.
“Wait!” she shouted, then shot the creature. It fell to the ground. “Okay, come out.”
A moment later, Mark appeared on the other side of the truck.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Mark’s eyes were wide. His face looked white in the flashlight’s beam. He simply nodded.
“We’re going,” she said.
“What about . . . Dillon?”
She rounded the front of the truck and grabbed the boy by the arm. “If he’s here, I don’t think he’s alive anymore.”
Mark immediately began to sniffle.
“Stop it. Not now. We need to—” She fired off a bullet into the face of a redhead that appeared out of the shadows. “We need to go.”
She shone the flashlight around the parkade, searching for the ramp leading out.
“Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .”
“That sounds like ‘someone,’” Mark said.
“I know, but it’s all I’ve been hearing.” If someone was in serious trouble, they’d use more than one word when calling for help, she figured. But if panic and shock had set in, then maybe one word was all they had.
“It could be Dillon.”
“Let’s keep moving.” It took an extra tug on Mark’s arm, but she led him toward the ramp, doing her best to keep them tightly alongside vehicles lest they risk getting seen.
Faintly, behind them, “Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .”
Mark stopped. “You can’t. You can’t leave him here.”
“You don’t even know it’s him. Look what just happened! You were almost eaten alive.”
“I don’t care!”
“Yes, you do.”
“Stop it. I want my friend.” His eyes bore nothing but grim determination.
“Srrrmmmoonnnngggrrr . . .”
Mark pulled his arm away and headed back into the dark.
21
Death
“Push yourself, August,” Billie told him. The old man’s steps were beginning to falter. “I don’t think I can hold onto you if the dead latch on first.”
After having emerged from the doorway, the zombies followed suit. Fortunately, they were in a big room with enough space on either side to zigzag if they had to.
August grunted; Billie knew he was reaching down deep to give their escape everything he had.
“This is the same room we came in,
right?” she asked.
It was a moment before August responded. “I think so. Could be wrong.”
The growls of the dead drew nearer. Billie’s legs felt like lead weights. She was slowing down despite the adrenaline pumping through her.
Hope the main door isn’t locked, she thought, but if Del was any strategist, it would be.
The zombie growls and moans grew in volume. She glanced over her shoulder. Del was a scant dozen or so paces behind. She pulled August along with everything she had.
“Where’s your God now?” she asked him without meaning to.
August didn’t respond.
“Your blood will fill this place!” Del shouted after her, his haunting voice coated with rage.
A tear inadvertently rolled down her cheek. This was how it was going to end. The door was coming up, not far away, but to get out of it she’d need a few seconds to open it. And if it was locked, a few seconds would be all Del needed to overtake them.
The thick footfalls of the undead grew louder in Billie’s ears until at last she knew that any second it would be over.
“I’m sorry,” she told August in between panted breaths. “I tried.”
“I forgive you,” he said. “You did what you could.”
They reached the door. Billie let go of August. The old man slumped against the wall next to the door, his breaths labored. His face was pale, his eyelids heavy. Billie grabbed onto the door handle and pulled.
Locked.
Del grabbed her from behind and flung her into the air. She sailed a good distance before landing into a horde of the undead. Many of them moved past her as she came down, as if their brains hadn’t yet comprehended they just got a free meal. She hit the crowd, stunned, and though she willed her legs to move and get themselves under her so she could stand, they didn’t. Instead she lay there helpless as zombies closed in on August and stole him from view.
His cries filled the room, then were silenced with a gargly scream as blood gushed from his neck and leaked down his windpipe. She saw his head lifted up above those of the dead’s, as if a prized catch. His body, she could imagine, was already torn to shreds, Del somewhere at the fore of it all, digging in with his brethren.
The remaining zombies took hold of her, one or two per limb. They pulled on her arms and legs, the force raising her body from the floor as if she was about to be drawn and quartered. Other zombies stumbled toward her middle, the closest being a slob of a fellow with green goop slopped onto his chin, unshaven and wearing a filthy gray and oil-stained Van Halen sweatshirt off his thick frame. Meaty fingers slapped down onto her stomach, sending a sickening shockwave through her core. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blinding white pain of undead fingers digging into her belly and ripping out her intestines.
The dead man groaned.
The wet slurps of zombie mouths smacking as they ate August floated through her.
She was next.
The slobby dead man groaned again—then was quickly cut off and a low choking sound escaped his lips.
Billie opened her eyes. A bright silver blade withdrew itself from the dead man’s neck. The zombie dropped. Before she could lay eyes on her rescuer, a blur of silver lit up all four corners of her peripheral as the dead arms and hands that held her aloft were quickly dismembered. She hit the ground with a smack.
“You,” Del growled from not far away.
Billie dug deep, sat up and scrambled backward on her palms and rear end to get some distance from the dead. She backed into the legs of another creature. It reached down, took her by the neck, and pulled her up. She wrestled against it and was quickly spun around, her face mere inches from the snarling jaws of a woman with her forehead peeled away, a flap of gray skin with dried blood hanging over her eyes like a set of bangs. Yellowed teeth opened wide and a dark gray tongue roiled around in her mouth like a dying snake.
Billie kicked at the zombie. Her foot punctured the woman’s rotted gut. Dry intestines fell from the woman’s middle. Immediately retaliating, the woman jerked her head forward, her mouth open. Billie shrieked. A flash of silver sliced off the top of the woman’s head from behind, the top of her head coming off like a bowler hat. The dead woman’s arms went limp and Billie plopped onto her feet.
She turned around, once more looking to see who saved her. She couldn’t find anybody.
“You are not welcome here!” Del shouted.
Who’s he talking to? she wondered.
The horde of zombies not far from her must have finished their meal because soon their attention was fixed on her.
Billie bolted toward the far side of the room. The zombies went after her. She spun around and struck the first one to approach with a fist to the face. The undead teen barely flinched and instead reached for her, its arm so badly decayed it did so in slow motion. His hand was easily avoided. She sidestepped as far to the left as she could and kicked another zombie in the stomach. The moment her foot planted back down, she slapped another—a reflex blow—before sending a palm into the mouth of an elderly dead man who was missing his cheek.
The zombies drew closer. She ran a few more paces but soon hit the far wall.
Breathing heavy, heartbeat now in panic mode, it all caught up to her and tears flooded her vision. August was dead. Joe was gone. Soon, she would be, too.
“Stay away!” Del snapped from not too far away.
The zombies closed in on Billie in a semicircle. She balled up her fists, deciding she would go down fighting. At least that way, in the afterlife, she could look back and say she did her best until the end.
Over ten zombies were lined up in front of her, most of them appearing to have been middle-aged when they died. Gray skin, cloudy white eyes, cracked lips and blood-smeared mouths were common to all. The rotten stench of decayed meat and foul eggs made her eyes water.
Vision blurry, Billie prepared to make her last stand.
The dead reached for her. The moment undead fingers clawed at her skin, bright silver sliced across the necks of them all. Dead heads separated from their bodies and the corpses stumbled a step then fell.
White light lit up the room and a man with his back to her materialized in front of her. He wore a long robe with a thousand folds, the fabric bronze like flame yet moved with liquid smoothness. An ornate silver shield, polished and bright, was strapped to his back. Something was written on it in a language she didn’t know, but had seen once before. His hair was a pillar of fire, and his feet were coated in bronze yet he didn’t seem to have trouble moving.
She knew who this was: Nathaniel.
An angel.
He held his sword partly to the side, its gleaming silver blade held firm by the bronze hand guard gripped with iron-strong fingers.
She wanted to speak. Thoughts of gratitude, greeting and just plain awe ran through her brain at breakneck speed, but at the same time, anger swelled inside. Joe was missing. August was dead. Nathaniel obviously possessed unimaginable power, and yet he was too late to save them.
The zombies just beyond Nathaniel recoiled at his presence and she didn’t have to see his eyes to know that white light streamed forth, his gaze penetrating each of them.
Del moved through the dead just beyond, his decaying form morphing back to that of a man again.
“Remove yourself, angel,” he said. “Our quarrel is not with you.”
When Nathaniel spoke, authority coated his voice. It was as if steel backed every word. “Your quarrel is with us, for we are in charge of those whom He asks us to protect. The one behind me is in my care.”
“You know that of which I speak. Don’t try to make it as if this is merely about the girl. She is simply food for us.” Del glanced past Nathaniel to Billie. “Worthless, pathetic. You waste your time with her.”
“Your opinion means nothing to me,” Nathaniel said.
“I know, and yours means nothing to me and on and on we go. We’ve spoken of this before and I do not care to venture down that path wit
h you again.” He looked at Nathaniel squarely. “You are outnumbered. There are more than thirty of us. You will not stand. You must leave for if you keep your ground our master will come and make an example out of you.”
“Your master is a coward and seeks that which is not his own. So it was in the beginning, and his punishment will be just.”
“As if you know of such things.”
“I was there when he fell from Heaven like lightning. As were you. You made your choice that day.”
“You’re right. We did.”
Suddenly Del’s eyes went black and smoke leaked from their sockets. His skin split open on his forehead then peeled away down his middle, revealing dark green and black scales. The creature stepped out of his former shell, his body long and arachnid-like with a bulbous bottom and smaller top. Long, sinewy arms and legs ran off his torso. His hands and feet were long and disproportionate to his arms; sharp black claws protruded from his fingers and toes. At first, Billie thought Del was wearing a black cape, but soon he snapped the cape outward to reveal leathery wings, each one tipped with a lead-like spike.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“Do not be afraid,” Nathaniel told her.
In a series of wet pops, all the zombies in the room shed their decaying fleshy forms. Scaly creatures emerged from the corpses like hornets and began buzzing about the room.
