This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  Ace watched from behind his sunglasses. He watched their faces, sick faces filled with a joy that shouldn't have existed. They liked hitting her. They liked breaking her bones with the stools. Madness twinkled in their eyes. They were animals, but they had their purposes. Ace took a sip from his soda as they stripped the dress off of the broken creature, "Just to see what she had going on," as the red-bearded man put it. Filthy creatures, Ace thought. He didn't know who was worse, the dead or the living.

  The chubby man with the funny-looking beard urinated on the woman, his little penis dangling in the florescent light of the restaurant. Ace was done with his drink, so he dropped it on the ground, and hopped off of the stool. He exited the restaurant, the men following behind him like lost puppy dogs.

  "Where are we going?" the man with the teardrop tattoo asked.

  "We're going to get my coke," he told them. This set them into hooting and hollering. In their hands, they carried weapons, blunt machines, capable of caving in skulls and putting the dead down for good. As Ace walked through the valley of the city, the sun rose up high, the shadows shifting, illuminating the walking dead spread out before them. Ace had a gun, but he didn't need a weapon. He already had four of them, living breathing weapons, ready to do what he said when he said it.

  Ace told the chubby man about the club he had played at the night before. The man knew exactly where it was, and he took the lead, Ace strolling casually along, his hands in the pockets of his leather pants, the cool metal of his handgun against the small of his back. They walked in the sunshine, feeling its June warmth spread throughout their bodies. The echo of helicopters thundered through the city, and smoke rose into the sky in every direction that Ace looked. The city was crumbling in front of his very eyes. What a great day, he thought.

  There was no plan. He just wanted to get high. What good was the end of the world without a little buzz? When they passed a convenience store, his men were obviously thinking the same thing. Though the store was obviously locked up, they found their way inside anyway. The crunch of broken glass drew the dead towards them, circling in upon their location as they looted through the store for beer and cigarettes.

  Ace stood across the street in the shadows, looking like nothing more than a lifelike statue clinging to the shaded side of a tall office building. He watched them move, the dead, drawn to the noise coming from inside the store. There were so many of them. Where had they all come from? Then there was more noise. From somewhere he heard an engine; it sounded distant, but in the dead alleys of the city, it was hard to tell. As it turns out, it wasn't as far off as he thought. When his men came stumbling out of the convenience store, their arms full of beer, cigarettes, and snacks that could only barely be categorized as food, a military jeep swerved around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of the men.

  He watched as his men threw down their purloined goods, the man with the teardrop tattoo going so far as to put his hands on his head. A bullhorn clicked to life, and the man in the jeep said, "Stop right there. Put your hands on your head. The city is under martial law."

  His men froze. The driver stayed put while the other soldiers hopped out of the jeep and headed over to the men, their guns at the ready. They made one crucial mistake. They failed to notice Ace standing in the shadows across from the store, perhaps mistaking him for one of the dead. He watched as the man in the jeep took aim down the street, his focus drawn elsewhere as the dead closed in around them. There wasn't much time.

  Ace pulled the cold chunk of metal from the back of his pants, and stalked toward the driver. He assessed the situation, calmly, coldly. Three soldiers. Nine bullets in the handgun. It was doable, but he would have to be fast. He kept his eyes on the man in the driver seat of the jeep. He never even heard Ace approach. Ace pulled the trigger, and the man slumped forward, blood splattered on the inside of the jeep's windshield. With no hesitation, Ace turned to his right, locking in on the soldiers, whose reactions were somewhat slower than he would have expected. He was able to line up his second shot, and he shot the second soldier in the shoulder. He fell to the ground, as the third soldier spun and peppered the side of the jeep with bullets. It was too late though. Ace had already ducked behind the jeep, smiling, his back pressed up against the cool metal.

  The third soldier never had a chance. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, the rock being Ace and his handgun, the hard place being the four criminals behind him, brutal, unforgiving criminals who had no intention of having their wonderland torn away from them and sealed behind the cold iron bars of a cell. As soon as the soldier turned his back and fired, Ace's men tackled the soldier, hauling him to the ground, and wrestling the rifle out of his hands. They kicked him and stomped him, just to let him know how displeased they were with the interruption of their revels.

  Ace rose from behind the jeep, dusted off his leather jacket and walked over to the man, who was lying facedown on the ground, the red-bearded man's knee in the soldier's back. Ace twirled the gun in his hand and squatted down in front of the soldier.

  "What do you want us to do with him?" the red-bearded man said.

  Ace smiled at the soldier on the ground, a predatory, unfriendly smile, and said, "Take his weapons. Take all their weapons. Put a bullet in his knee, and let him see if he can survive."

  They did what he said, just as he had done with the cop in the police station. By the time they had thrown their beer, snacks, and cigarettes into the back of the jeep, the soldier was hopelessly surrounded by the dead, as were they, but they had a jeep... the soldier merely had a limp and the breath in his lungs. They drove away, pressing through the dead, smashing in the faces of the one's that got too close with the butts of their stolen rifles. Over the noise of the roaring jeep engine, they could hear the man scream.

  Ace hummed a tune from his childhood as the man with the shaved head drove them to their destination. A helicopter flew over head and fired a rocket into the distance. There was an explosion. Explosions are cool, he thought.

  Chapter 7: Fortified

  Lieutenant General McCutcheon sat in the cab of a Hitachi gantry crane sitting on the edge of the Port of Portland's Terminal 2. The terminal sat on the edge of the Willamette River, some three and a half miles south of the St. John's Bridge, a beautiful green steel suspension bridge that spanned the river. Of course, this was not the direction that Lieutenant General McCutcheon was looking. He was looking further south, at the tops of the buildings that were on fire a mile and a half away to the south.

  Below him, the bulk of an army corps was working at fortifying the terminal, 52 acres of parking lots, abandoned shipping containers with nowhere to go, and 30,000 men under his command. He had not yet been promoted to a four-star general, but he could feel the promotion coming. The body of the previous general that had been in charge of the city's defense lay smoldering in one of the burning skyscrapers in downtown Portland. At least he hoped that was the case. It could very well be walking about by now. Such were the risks of working in the army.

  McCutcheon cast his gaze to the west, eyeing the opposite side of the river. He could see bodies moving. Whether or not they were dead was of no consequence to him. Right now, his only concern was fortifying his position and the city's deep waterways, dredged to make the city one of the most impressive inland ports the country had. It was their lifeline. With the port in their hands, they had access to supplies. They had access to the Navy's resources, they had reliable runways, but most importantly they had a means of escape.

  He looked down at the binoculars in his hands, strong hands, capable hands, and he put them to his eyes. On the opposite side of the river, he watched as a young boy ran, shambling forms chasing after him in the sunlight. He heard the brief pop of a rifle, and watched as the head of one of the creature's turned into a red mist.

  On top of warehouse #206, one of the snipers under his command was doing his best to help out. Considering the opposite side of the river must have been at least 2,500 f
eet away, he was doing a heck of a job. The boy ran, his blonde bowl cut bouncing with each awkward step. The boy tripped on a rock, the way young people do. There was another pop from warehouse #206, and another puff of pink mist. This time one of the dead's arms fell off. But it wasn't enough to buy the boy a reprieve. McCutcheon lowered his binoculars and ran one of his strong, capable hands over his face. Smooth shaven and grim, he let the binoculars dangle on the cord that was hanging around his neck.

  "Jesus. Just... Jesus."

  McCutcheon climbed down the ladders and landings that would get him back on the ground. At the bottom, in the long shadow of the crane, he met Colonel Tejada, a thick squatty man with brown skin, and arms like woven steel cables. "Any word from the men that checked out the hospital?"

  Colonel Tejada saluted McCutcheon before he spoke. "The hospital is lost, sir. They said it was overrun. They only found two survivors, a doctor and a patient, sir."

  McCutcheon scrubbed his hand over his face. "Any casualties?"

  "One injury, sir."

  They walked across the black tar of the port headed for warehouse #206, a massive building that was mostly pillars and recently unpacked communications equipment. Cheap army desks and tables could not fill the hollow feeling of the warehouse. They entered the building, going over the particulars of this particular occupation, as unlikely an occupation as Lietuenant General McCutcheon could have ever imagined. He sat at his plain desk, its cheap, faux wood surface covered in piles of manila folders.

  "What about the police?" McCutcheon asked. "Have we heard anything from the local authorities?"

  "Sir, we've been able to make contact with some of the suburban police. They sound like they're holding on by a thread. As far as Portland goes, we know the East Precinct has suffered heavy casualties. It sounds as if they've barricaded themselves in their police station. The North Precinct is totally lost, and we haven't heard back from the men that we sent to the Downtown Precinct, sir."

  "Well this sounds like quite a shitstorm. Send a squad out to the downtown precinct. Maybe our men got into some trouble. Have them look for the missing squad along the way. Send some men to the East Precinct as well. Get those police out of there. Get them home."

  The Lieutenant General eased himself into a deceptively comfortable chair. "How are our boys in the air doing?"

  "They've reconnoitered all of the major highways. All major arteries into and out of the city are clogged with stalled cars and the infected, sir."

  McCutcheon didn't like the sound of that. There was no way into or out of the city except by air, by ship, or by foot... and you'd have a greater chance of getting your foot gnawed off than making it out alive. He rocked back and forth in his chair. As an afterthought, he asked, "How are the rescue stations coming along?"

  "Preparations are ongoing. The Memorial Coliseum is being fortified as we speak, sir. We've run into some trouble at the soccer stadium."

  "What kind of trouble, Sergeant?"

  "The Annies plowed through the gates on the east end of the field. We lost quite a few men, sir."

  "How many?"

  "Five hundred, give or take a hundred."

  McCutcheon ran a hand over his face. Five-hundred dead, maybe more. Missing squads all over the place. The operation was not starting out well."

  "Any refugees, yet?"

  "Some are trickling in, but there are more reports of the dead than the living, sir."

  McCutcheon dismissed Sergeant Tejada, and the stocky man walked away. He leaned back in his uncomfortable chair and put his hands behind his head. He put his boots on the desk, thinking.

  3 million people... there were three million people within fifty miles of where he sat. How many of them had turned into the dead? How many of them had gotten up off the ground after being attacked, and started a quest for living flesh? McCutcheon still found it hard to believe that this was all real. He was deployed on American soil, not to defend it, but to exterminate the very people he had sworn to protect.

  Things were bad all over. In New York, the army was fighting a losing battle. The sickness had spread, the infected rampaging through the streets. The army had sent a hundred-thousand soldiers to take on the eight million inhabitants of New York... and there were another 12 million in the metropolitan area. 3 million was a lot... 20 million, well that was impossible, even with a hundred-thousand troops. He wondered how long it would be. How long could they fight this war against the people they were supposed to defend?

  McCutcheon lifted a stack of papers off of his desk. He didn't want to believe the paper on top. It was a list of non-reported soldiers, mostly members of the National Guard and the reserves, but there were other names on the list, names of people who had simply gone missing. He didn't blame them. If he hadn't actively been on the base at the time, he would have been tempted to stay in Colorado to fight for his family.

  McCutcheon cursed himself for listening to his wife. "A home in the city," Sheila had said, "some place to keep me busy when you're away." Now there were potentially 700,000 thousand murderers surrounding his wife and his two daughters... and he was stuck here in Portland, trying to figure out how many soldiers had been sent out to Colorado. Was it less than the 30,000 he had? Was it more? Was one of his daughters being chased down Clear Creek right now, being chased by homicidal cannibals, that, if the eggheads were correct, were actually reanimated corpses? Was there a sniper there, paving the way for her escape?

  The questions kept coming. He couldn't stop them. He hadn't been able to reach his wife since last night. He had told her to leave the city. He was still kicking himself for it. Seeing how the roads in Portland looked, he had most likely sent Sheila to her death, but maybe she was out there, holing up somewhere with his daughters, Samantha and Raina. God, he hoped she was out there.

  The Lieutenant General leaned forward and put his hands over his face, to hide the tears. Goddamn this warehouse, he thought, it doesn't even have a private place to cry.

  Directly above him, he heard the pop of another sniper rifle come from the roof of Warehouse #206.

  Chapter 8: Boardman, Oregon

  165 miles east of Portland, Colin Murphy, affectionately known as Murph to the other staff at the Boardman Power Plant, was having his lunch and listening to the radio. He pulled a hard-boiled egg wrapped in a paper towel from the paper bag sitting on the console. If the Chief saw his lunch sitting on the console, he would have his ass, or at least he would have had it in the past. Now things were different.

  Over the radio, Murph listened to the stories. It sounded like the end of the world out there. At first, Murph had thought it was one of those hoaxes like that old War of the Worlds story that people always told, the one about how some residents heard the story on the radio and mistook fact for fiction, hopping in their trucks with shotguns to fight off the alien menace.

  Murph tapped the egg against the edge of the console, breaking the hard shell. He laid his napkin flat over the buttons in front of him and began the process of peeling the egg.

  Things were bad all over, but not in Boardman. Boardman was a small town, out of the way, populated mostly by people employed at the power plant. There had been little of the "mass hysteria" that was being portrayed over the radio. Maybe it was another one of those Y2K situations, a non-issue being blown all out of proportion by the media for ratings. Murph wouldn't put it past them. First Y2K, then that SARS shit, and now the dead coming back to life.

  Murph pulled half the shell off the egg in one go. It was an omen, a good one. The egg, was part of his daily ritual, one that he had developed over the last year of working in the control room of the power plant. He could tell how his day was going to go simply by peeling his hard-boiled egg at the beginning of every shift. Today was going to be a good day. He leaned back in the chair and brought the cold, pungent egg up to his lips and took a bite. On the monitors, everything was golden. It usually was.

  Working at the Boardman Power Plant wasn't for most people. Fo
r one thing, the town that they all lived in was out in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but a few farms, a general store, and a bowling alley that seemed out of place among all of the power plant workers and their families. Half the time the lanes stood empty, the only noise issuing forth from the bar, where power plant workers, bathed in the neon light of beer signs, swilled beer and traded stories of their glorious pasts, stories about loves won and loves lost. They were mostly bullshit, but that suited Murph fine. He had experienced enough adventure as a youth, winding up on the wrong side of life, skinny, broke, and in jail. No, his new life suited him just dandy. He had a book in his bag, some monitors and lights to watch, and a simple lunch. He was stress free and without temptation in the ass-end of the Oregon high desert, just the way he liked it.

  Murph set the remaining half of the egg down on the paper towel, then he pulled a couple of small plastic containers labeled "P" and "S" from the paper bag on the console. He upended them over the egg, watching the salt and pepper dot the yellow yolk. It was about as much excitement as he could stand.

  He was chewing on the second half of the egg when his radio squawked to life. "Murph. Get your ass down here."

  With a mouthful of egg, he reached for the radio, depressed the button, and said, "Down where, Chief?"

  "Down to the cafeteria," the reply came. Murph swallowed the egg, bundled up the napkin with its discarded shell and dumped it in the trashcan for the custodial staff to deal with. This was serious. The Chief was a stickler for the rules. For him to even use a radio and not use the customary "over" call at the end of his message was enough to tell him that. The fact that he was actually having him leave his post during his shift was a further indication.