This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  At her feet, Joan groaned as she sat up. She wobbled to her feet and then fell over. Clara did not lend her a hand. "Do you know of any other way out of here?"

  Joan stood up groaning and stumbled to the doorway. She looked out into the hallway where the men in the biohazard suits were busy trying to fend off at least fifteen patients who seemed to want nothing more than to kill them. Clara cringed as she saw one of them go down under the weight of three patients. His suit was shredded and ripped in no time. It was great at keeping out bacteria and viruses, but a human hand intent on destruction was no match for the thin material.

  The other men in suits backed up slowly. Apparently, there wasn't much camaraderie among the security detail. There were only three of them left, and one of them was out of ammunition.

  Clara moved silently as Joan grabbed her arm and pulled her down the hallway. "Follow me," she whispered.

  Clara's first instinct was to put her fist through Joan's face. The last time she had followed Joan was the reason she was stuck in the hospital with a bunch of murderous freaks in the first place. She didn't follow through on her urge. There were larger concerns to worry about. Joan ushered her into an office and then closed the door behind her. There was the sound of air hissing and Clara's ears suddenly filled with pressure. The light on the door's locking mechanism turned from red to green, and Joan collapsed in a wheeled office chair.

  "Would you like to tell me just what the hell is going on?" Clara asked. Gunshots rang through the halls outside, still painfully loud despite the walls around them. Joan ignored Clara and began fiddling with a remote control. A bank of monitors sprung to life, and Clara's mouth dropped open as she watched the carnage on the screens.

  "I'm saving your goddamn life. That's what's going on," Joan spat at her.

  Clara plopped down on the cot in the corner of the room, her mouth open and incapable of making any sort of sound. She heard the screams in stereo, through the speakers on the monitors and through the walls. The patients in the hallway tore through the three remaining men in biohazard suits. The last one died just outside the office that they were hiding in. He beat upon the door as the patients ripped his suit into shreds and then did the same to his body.

  Clara and Joan sat in silence. The patients meandered around the quarantine wing, looking for something, but there was nothing to be seen. Soon the crowd thinned out as the patients continued on to greener pastures.

  "Joan, what is going on?"

  Joan put her hand up to silence her and then she pointed at the monitor. "Look."

  The last man to die began to move around. Though he was missing half his face, an eye, and the lower part of his left arm, he began to rise. Clara couldn't believe what she was seeing. When he began pounding on the door with his stump of an arm, she finally acknowledged that she just might have lost her mind. When the other security guards rose up and joined him, she became positive of the fact.

  Chapter 35: The Long Way Home

  Old Han cackled in his beat-up, gold Daewoo Espero. It was the first car that he had managed to buy in America, and it was the only car. It wasn't Chinese, but Korean was the next best thing. The last thing he wanted to do was give the lazy Americans any more of his hard-earned money. He didn't mind that the car barely ran and that replacement parts for the defunct car manufacturer were hard to find, especially when one was using broken English to describe what one needed.

  He reached for the car stereo, and turned up the sound on the tape deck. Black Panther's delightfully glammy metal jams blared on the radio, a message from the early '90s Chinese rock band still struggling on in a Korean car driven by a Chinese man in America. Old Han laughed at how wonderful the world was.

  As he moved through the city, away from his burning bar, he came to a stop at an intersection. He was frightened out of his daydreaming by a blood-soaked woman's hand pounding on his window. Blood poured from her forearm, and Han could see figures chasing after her.

  He stepped on the gas, his car sputtering down the street, the muffler jangling around, ready to fall off at the next speed bump. Han swore in Mandarin. He swore more when he saw that she had left a bloody handprint on his driver's side window. He was half tempted to turn right around and run the lady over. They were probably on some drug-fueled binge, her and her multiple boyfriends. Americans were like that. Gross, immoral, and riddled with addictions.

  When Han had to stop at the next intersection, it was because it was clogged with traffic. People were honking and shouting as three men struggled amid some car wreckage. Han waved his hand in dismissal and backed the Daewoo up. He knew another route. It was a dark alley, filled with potholes, but it would take him around the clogged intersection. He sucked in a breath of air as his muffler scraped the ground after a vicious pothole.

  Somehow, the Daewoo made it through the forgotten and unkempt alley, only to be confronted by a crowd of people advancing down the next street. It was at this point in time that Old Han finally realized that something out of the ordinary was going on. The group of people marching toward his car were all injured in various ways, some stomach-churning to see. There were only two choices, drive forward and plow through the people, or drive backwards and risk destroying his car.

  Old Han decided to wait and see what would happen. He didn't see any weapons; maybe they would just move on. Just in case, Han reached into his glove box and pulled out a pistol. As the gang approached, he shrunk in his seat. When the first of the group did not pass the car, he knew he was in trouble. A man in a gray sweatshirt began pounding on the driver's side window, while another man began pounding on the other side. Soon, more had joined in the pounding. He felt the car begin to rock back and forth.

  "Motherfuck it." Old Han stepped on the gas. Bodies flew left and right, but Han still couldn't see as there were three people clinging to the hood of his car. He swerved to the right, and two of them fell off to the side. His view was still obstructed however, as a man with an eye hanging by a scrap of tendon still clung to the hood of the Daewoo. Han swerved to the left this time, and his car hopped the curb, drove on the sidewalk for a few yards, and then thumped back onto the street.

  He screamed triumphantly at the top of his lungs as the last man rolled off of his car. The noise in the car was deafening, as his muffler had dropped off when he jumped the curb. The loud sputtering of his engine exploded throughout the early morning air, echoing through streets teeming with the dead. As Han sped on, he kept his pistol in his lap. He rocketed down the streets, heedless of speed limits. He saw it now. The destruction, the wandering people. His eyes had finally opened. He had to dodge several grasping sets of arms reaching for his car as he weaved through the city streets. He avoided oncoming cars, doing their own swerving. In one yard, he saw a man with a shotgun firing into a group of people. He continued on.

  When he finally pulled into the driveway of his single-level ranch home, his hair had escaped its ridiculous comb-over. It stuck out every which way. With his pistol in his hand, he turned off the car and sprinted toward the front door. He pulled his giant key ring out and searched frantically for the right one. He found it and burst through the front door of his house. He slammed the door shut behind him and locked the door. He was standing there looking out the blinds when his wife came up behind him.

  He could smell the sickening stench of her perfume before her arm snaked around his waist. He could feel the saggy meat of her breasts against his back. The feeling revolted him.

  "What are you looking for?" Fang asked in perfect English.

  Han ignored her and kept peering out the window through his thick-lensed glasses. They must have been thirty-years-old, but the glasses were all that he had left from China... that and his repugnant wife. There... at the street corner. He saw two, maybe three people walking down the street. They must have been drawn to his house by the thunderous noise of his muffler-less Daewoo. He backed away from the blinds, and shoved his wife away.

  She looked at him with hurt
in her eyes. She always had that look. It infuriated him.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  Han ran his hands through his thinning hair, causing thin wisps of it to stand up in even crazier directions. "Have you heard anything weird tonight?"

  "Weird? What do you mean?"

  "I mean crazy people. Running around, hurt."

  Fang look confused. "I was sleeping for most of the night. What's going on?"

  Han dismissed her with a wave of his hand and walked over to the couch. He plopped down on the couch, annoyed by the divot his wife's ass had made in the couch over the year, and reached for the remote. He turned on the TV. While he waited for it to warm up, his wife plopped down on the couch next to him, crowding him with her body, her perfume snaking its way up his nose.

  The picture finally showed up on the TV, and he flipped the channel to the news. They sat in silence as the pictures flitted across the screen. His wife inched closer and closer to him as horrifying image after horrifying image flashed across the TV. Things were bad, very bad. For the first time in a long time, he didn't mind his wife's touch. He welcomed it.

  He looked at his wife and kissed her, not the cold American kisses that they had shared for the last few decades, but the hot kiss of their youth. Who knows what would have happened next had the window not burst open and the maimed corpse of an American youth begun crawling through the window.

  Chapter 36: This Old Cell

  Ace heard the door to his cell clang open, just before he blacked out. When he awoke, he awoke to a strange sound that was barely audible underneath the buzz of the cellblock's yelling. It sounded like a cat eating wet cat food, smacking its lips together. Ace almost faded out, as he thought of his cat at home, a small, orange beast with a crooked tail being watched by his mother. His fans would get a kick out of knowing that he still lived at home with his mother and a cat. The only thing that stopped him from fading out completely was that the noises were much too loud for a cat to be making them.

  He opened his eyes and groaned. His throat was bruised and raw. As he sat up on his cold metal cot, he saw his cellmate kneeling over something with his back to Ace. It took a while for his eyes to adjust, but then the face of the cop with the red goatee came into focus. His eyes stared up at the ceiling... lifeless.

  Suddenly, Ace was no longer a fan of America. Blood ran from the cop's mouth, and Ace could only think of one thing to do. He stood up, barely able to steady himself on his legs. He would only get one chance, so he waited silently until he felt like he was ready. When he had built up the courage, he charged at the back of the feasting man and dropkicked him in the back as hard as he could. The man went skidding across the floor and out of the cell. Ace popped to his feet, wobbling unsteadily as the blood was still trying to refresh his brain. He grabbed the cold metal bars of the cell door and slid it closed with a clang.

  He was just in time too. He had to spring backwards to avoid his cellmate's outstretched arms reaching for him through the bars. He hung just out of arm's reach and studied his cellmate's face. His mouth was covered in blood, and he could see bits of flesh stuck in the man's teeth. His eyes were glassy and unfocusing. Ace flipped him off, but it was as if he was invisible to the man, except for the fact that he was clearly hungry for seconds. Over his cellmate's shoulder, he could see the man in the cell across the hall reaching for him as well, his face pressed against the bars.

  Ace bent over the mutilated jailor. The smell of his insides was pungent, and he had to fight to keep from gagging. The roar of the cellblock was deafening. With his hand over his mouth and nose, he dropped down to his knees and searched the guard's body. Today, was his lucky day... if a day filled with murder and violence could be considered lucky. The jailor still had his keys on him. Twenty keys on a ring, but no gun, and a guest just outside the door who could throw him around like a ragdoll if he got close.

  Ace was formulating a plan when the guard grabbed a hold of his arm and began pulling it to his mouth. Instinctively, Ace cracked the guard across the jaw, but still the man clung to him. Ace got off of his knees and yanked his arm away from the guard.

  "Hey!" he yelled, not knowing what else to say, his English temporarily failing him. He backed away from the guard, bumping into the far wall of his cell. The guard managed to get to his knees, the shreds of his intestines flopping on his brown guardsman pants. "Stop!" Ace yelled.

  The guard advanced on him, and out of sheer panic, Ace spun and landed a hard kick on the guard's face. The guard toppled to the ground. For a moment, Ace was concerned for the man's health, and then he realized that the man was in fact dead. The blank stare, the gaping gut wound, it all made sense to him.

  As the guard rolled over and tried to get to his feet, Ace pounced on the man's back, grabbed his head and began pounding it into the concrete floor of the cell. The guard was helpless, and when Ace had finished, the guard's forehead was caved in and the ground was covered in blood. He stood, shining with sweat, and let out a ragged sigh.

  He looked into the hallway, and his former cellmate was still there, still clawing at the air and trying to get to him. Now he had to deal with him. Ace rummaged through the guard's pockets, coming up with nothing more than a collapsible baton. No gun. No taser. Just a solid piece of metal that wasn't very likely to deter his former cellmate.

  Ace flung his wrist out, flicking the collapsible baton so it opened. He took a swing at the concrete walls of his cell. A small flake of the concrete wall flew off. The baton was heavy and weighted properly, but it was going to take one lucky hit to take out his cellmate.

  The air whistled as Ace approached his cellmate and swung the baton in a downward arc. The baton glanced off one of the steel bars, robbing it of its impact. The man on the other side of the bars appeared to feel nothing as the metal baton bashed into his shoulder. For a second, Ace wanted to just stab the baton at the man's eye and kill him outright, but the collapsible nature of the baton wouldn't allow it, so he continued to swing away.

  Despite the fact that he could play guitar and belt out songs at the same time, in virtually every other facet of his life, Ace was not considered agile. It took him about twenty swings to finally land a solid blow to his cellmate's head. In the meantime, the noise in the hallway had increased, and people were shouting up and down the hallway.

  He had trouble making out the words of the other prisoners, but then he heard gunshots from the entrance to the cellblock. Ace swung the baton harder and faster, desperation lacing every swing. The din in the hallway rose higher and higher, and then there were more gunshots. Just as he was about to deliver another swing at the man, the side of his cellmate's head exploded, blood splattering the concrete floor of the hallway. Ace stood there, his arm raised in the air, and for some absurd reason, he stared at the puddle of blood oozing out of his former cellmate's skull... trying to make a shape out of it, as if it were a cloud floating in a blue spring sky. It looked like a fish he decided, a fish with its guts spilling out.

  As he stood there, trying to come up with another shape, two men ran down the hallway, guns in their hands.

  A pudgy cop in riot gear began yelling at the prisoners, "If you're alive, yell your name, otherwise we will shoot you. I repeat, if you are alive, yell your name, otherwise I will shoot you."

  The shouting became more intense. The voices of the panicked prisoners reverberated off of the concrete walls, echoing back and forth and building in intensity.

  The pudgy cop's partner stopped in front of Ace's cell. He looked at Ace with suspicion in his eyes and his gun raised.

  "Ace! My name is Ace! Ace! Ace!"

  The cop seemed satisfied. Then he noticed the jailor on the floor, a blood puddle expanding from his split melon. "What the fuck is that?"

  "He try to kill me," Ace pleaded. The cop aimed his gun at him as Ace continued to yell, "He tried to eat me!"

  Just when it seemed like the cop was going to pull the trigger, the man that had been bashing his head against t
he bars for the last two hours, reached through his bars of his cell and yanked on the cop's satin police jacket. He managed to squeeze off a round that zinged by Ace's head. Hot fire ran down his cheek.

  "I got one!" the cop announced to his partner as he slipped out of his jacket and away from the grasp of the man in the cell.

  "Well, then take him out," his partner yelled.

  Ace was still in shock when the cop pulled the trigger. Despite everything he had seen that night, he still felt fear gurgle in his belly as the cop put a round through the head of the man across the hall. He slumped to the ground, his face still pressed against the bars, and blood running down his face, dripping onto the concrete floor.

  The cop continued down the hallway, Ace momentarily forgotten. Ace flinched every time there was a gunshot. That could have been me, he thought. He held his hand to his bleeding cheek and hoped his bandmates were yelling out their names, but he couldn't tell over the din of noise coming from the cells.

  When the cop had checked every cell, he came walking back through the hallway. "Stay in your cells. We have an emergency situation. If you stay in these cells, you will be safe. We will be back in an hour to check on you. Especially you, buddy boy," he said as he strode past Ace's cell.

  As the cop disappeared from sight, Ace could hear the man repeating his message, and then they were gone, both of them. Noise still flooded the cells. People were yelling for help and asking questions. "Stay in your cells," the man said again, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Fuck that.

  Ace pulled the key ring off the jailor and began plugging the keys into the lock on his cell, one by one. The last thing he was going to do was sit in a cell with a rotting corpse, waiting to be executed. He didn't know what was going on outside, but this was most definitely not normal... even for America.